


Next Class: Season 5

by wherethesinscry



Category: Degrassi: Next Class
Genre: 2016/2017 School Year, Canon Continuation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27530908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherethesinscry/pseuds/wherethesinscry
Summary: Degrassi may have been cancelled but it's not dead in my heart. This story is a continuation of Degrassi: Next Class.Get ready for Cheesy Writing! Relationship Drama! Gigantic Tone Shifts Between A And B Plots! Serious Topics Dealt With Very Clumsily By Someone With Little Experience With Them!Everything that you miss about Degrassi returns in this faux Season 5.
Relationships: Saad Al'Maliki/Lola Pacini
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Episode 1: This Is What You Came For

**Author's Note:**

> Frankie tries to rekindle a relationship, Lola has to mediate drama in her friend group, and Naomi starts branching out.

School was only an hour away and there was still no word from her, but Frankie hadn’t given up yet. She slipped her phone into the pocket of her shorts and trundled down the stairs of her home, backpack slung over one shoulder. She had just spent half an hour picking out the perfect outfit for the first day of school. She met Hunter and Diana in the outside dining area by their pool. With fall fast approaching it was nice to have days where they could still share meals outside. Diana and Hunter were already sitting at the table, where Diana had set up an extravagant breakfast with doilies under the plates, baskets of pastries, and dishes filled with eggs, sausages, and pancakes. In her seventeen years of life Frankie had learned that when her mother’s emotions were running high, she cooked. Frankie sat down and put her backpack at the base of her chair. She could see her mom was already fighting back tears. She started serving herself some eggs.

“Look at you two, all grown up!” Diana reached across the table and squeezed Hunter’s arm. “I can’t even imagine it, my two babies going to their last first day!”

“It’s not that big of a deal, it’s just high school,” Hunter said. He was resting his chin on his hand and taking small bites of a piece of toast. 

“But I’ll be losing you two after this year.” She fanned herself, drying tears that had not yet fallen. “I’m sorry for getting so emotional, but it means a lot to me.”

Frankie’s phone buzzed from inside her pocket. She pulled it out in a flash, hoping it would be her, but it wasn’t. It was just a picture from Shay dressed up in jeans and a red shirt. Under the picture Shay had asked her if her outfit looked good. It did. Frankie was in the middle of sending her a thumbs up emoji when Diana spoke.

“Hey, no phones at the table.”

“Sorry,” Frankie said, tucking it away. “I was just hoping it would be Esme.”

“Esme?” Hunter’s voice sounded full of interest for the first time in a long while. While Frankie had entertained herself by hanging out with friends, touring universities, and thoroughly enjoying their most recent vacation, Hunter had spent his months off mourning and moping about his breakup. Even from their beautiful hotel in Italy. “Crazy Esme? Why do you want to talk to her?”

“She’s not crazy, she’s getting help. And I want to make sure she’s doing okay.”

“That doesn’t have to be your problem. She probably has, like, 50 therapists making sure she doesn’t do anything crazy again.” His voice was demeaning, but the fact that Frankie had heard people say the same kind of stuff about Hunter kept her from getting too offended by his words. 

“I’m sorry,” Diana started. “Is this Miles’ ex Esme?”

“Well, they never technically dated,” Frankie said.

Diana let out a huff. “I don’t care about the details. She’s the reason Miles went through all that nonsense. You’re not welcome to speak to her.”

“But Mom-”

“No. This is final. The last thing we need this year is another Hollingsworth getting into trouble. Now, you two need to get off to school.”

Frankie groaned, grabbed her backpack, and started walking out front to where she had parked the car in front of their house. Hunter followed her, a piece of toast still clasped between his teeth. Frankie would be driving the pair of them to school, since Hunter had failed his driving test three separate times. When she was securely in the driver's seat she turned to her brother and posed a question.

“You don’t actually think Esme’s crazy, right? I mean, you needed your friends by your side when you got out of the hospital.”

“Yeah,” Hunter agreed. “But I’m not a psychopath, and I actually have friends.”

Frankie sighed.

Hunter sighed too, and spoke again. “Look, I’m not telling you you can’t talk to her or anything, and doing the opposite of what Mom says is The Hollingsworth Way, but you should be careful. Esme’s bad news.”

She turned the key in the ignition and listened to the engine rumble to life. Hunter was definitely right, her last interactions with Esme hadn’t been the best moments of her life, and her relationship with her wasn’t something that ended happily, but she still cared about her. And she couldn’t even start to imagine what it was going to be like for her. She was repeating her senior year, and on top of that almost everyone knew that she was the crazy girl who tried to ruin prom last year.

Still, Frankie could see that under all that Esme was just scared. She was young, and she deserved friends, just like everyone else. And if no one was going to step up to the task then it was going to have to be Frankie.

As she turned onto the main road she let her thoughts drift away from Esme so she could start focusing on cautious driving.

\-----

Lola leaned her face into the open door of the car and made direct eye contact with her dad. “Gracias, Papi,” she said.

“De nada, hija,” Fernando said to her.

Saad climbed out of the back seat of the car. “Thank you for the ride, Mr. Pacini.” Abra followed her brother out, and he nudged her in the ribs.

“Oh. Thank you!” she said.

“Of course, you two.”

“Bye, Papi,” Lola said. She and Abra slammed the doors on Fernando at the same time. Lola watched the car start moving and waited just long enough to be sure her dad was no longer looking at her before hugging her boyfriend. She squealed, arms wrapped around him. 

“Whoa!” Saad managed to keep his balance despite her hanging around his waist.

“Think about it! It’s our final year at Degrassi, this is our final chance to do something amazing!”

“Lara!” Abra suddenly sprinted ahead. Lola watched her chase up the cement stairs in front of their beautiful school. She met Lara by the front doors and wrapped her up in a big hug. Lola suddenly had a deep desire to do the same with her best friends.

“It’s just school,” Saad said.

“It’s not just school,” Lola said. “It’s our school. And after this year we’ll never be back. Doesn’t that mean something?”

Lola spotted something at the edge of the parking lot and ran from Saad before he had the chance to reply.

“Frankie!” she shouted. “Shay!”

Soon the three of them were involved in the tightest group hug they had been in for a long while. 

“Oh, my God. You guys!” She pulled away from her friends so she could get a good look at them. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen them at all since last school year ended, but Frankie had been on a vacation with her family at the end of summer and Shay was always away at training or touring universities so Lola’s time without them had been a little longer than she wanted it to be. There was also something about the start of the school year that felt more real than summer. The start of school meant that she was going to see her favorite people every single day for the next nine months, and that was better than anything summer could give her.

From just a look she could see that the summer hadn’t been as life changing as people always predicted it would be. Frankie still wore an iconic summery skirt and top while Shay’s outfit was still preppy-chic and her hair was still tightly woven into her two dark braids.

“Holy cow, you’re hair!” Shay observed, her hands grazing Lola’s forehead.

Lola’s hands went up to touch it. “Does it look good?”

“It looks amazing,” she assured her.

Two nights ago Lola had spent a good three hours turning her hair from bubblegum blue to a lilac-y purple. She was pretty satisfied with it, but she was sure her stylist could have done better. Unfortunately she had recently moved away to British Columbia and now there was no one left in the greater Toronto area that Lola trusted with her hair other than herself.

“Hey,” a soft voice said. Lola yelped and turned around, to be faced with none other than Saad.

“Saad! You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He let a light smile release onto his lips, then he let Lola graze his lips with her own.

“Aw,” Frankie said. “You two are adorable.”

“And still together. Very cute,” Shay added. There was something negative in her voice, but Lola couldn’t tell if it was jealousy or disgust or what.

“Oh no,” Lola started. “Did you and Tiny-?”

“No, not yet. But he’s been super weird lately.”

“Blarg,” Frankie jumped in. “No boy talk. Today is a wonderful first day of school and we’re going to celebrate-” she pulled out her phone “-with a selfie.”

The girls squeezed together as Frankie held out the phone in front of them.

“Get in here!” Lola called as she pulled Saad into the frame of the photo by his waist.

The four of them smiled and posed as Frankie clicked the camera button a few times. They broke apart and she inspected the pictures.

“Aw. We look so cute,” Frankie said. Shay nodded her agreement.

“Send them to me,” Lola said.

“I will.”

“Can we go to class now? If I’m late on the first day of school I will be throwing you guys under the bus if my parents find out.” Shay gestured towards the open doors of the school and the dwindling number of students still outside.

Frankie put her arms over the shoulders of her best friends. Shay walked with her arms folded, and Lola held Saad’s hand on the other side of her friends.

It was the first day of her final year and she was lucky enough to have her two best friends on one side of her and her boyfriend on the other.

This year was going to treat Lola well, she was sure of that. And if she had any say in it, she was going to let her last year at Degrassi be as drama-free as possible.

\-----

For the first time in her high school career, Naomi Gottesman felt confident walking down the hallways of her school. First of all, she was a niner no more. She was in grade 10 and even though that still made her a lowerclassmen, she was ready to be respected by the people of her school. Then there was the fact that she finally decided it was time for her to have a glow up. Last year she was insecure and wore nothing but baggy t-shirts with printed crap on them referencing theTV shows and movies she likes.

Liked, she corrected herself. With her glow up comes a whole new attitude and a whole new batch of interests. She swapped out all those shirts and her funky pants for a style that’s much more in. Last year she was so insecure about her weight, but now she’s learned to embrace it. Well, she also lost 10 pounds over the summer, but that didn’t make her supermodel thin or anything. She still had some pudge, but her high waisted jeans were doing their job in covering that up. Her face had a fresh coat of makeup on it and her low cut shirt did its job of showing off what little cleavage she had. At age fifteen she was pretty sure this was all she was gonna get. Still, if she wanted a boyfriend any time soon she would have to faunt what she had.

Last year’s geeky galaxy backpack had been switched out for a brand new yellow FjallRaven bag, which swung casually around her butt as she strutted down the hallway. If her life was a movie the camera would be following her along the hallway as the sea of unassuming niners parted for her.

That didn’t happen, but she knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. She had the look, now she just needed to get her in with the popular kids. Step one was to make Lara Chiang and Abra Al’Maliki her best friends, and step two was to make either Andre Coates or Josiah Shapiro her boyfriend. She wasn’t going to be picky about which one, although Josiah had both a better name and a more attractive face.

She was taking the long way to her new first period, because the world needed to get a good look at her outfit before it was confined to a class room for 55 minutes. She made her second pass through the alcove when she saw them. All four of the people she had just been fantasizing about gathered in a group. Lara was wearing an outfit identical in style to her own, and she looked amazing. As always. Abra stood leaned against a post in the room like she was posing for a professional photoshoot. Josiah had an arm around Andre in a very bro-like way. They were both looking very handsome. And although Josiah was more physically attractive, the outfit Andre was wearing was very well put together, and Josiah looked as if he had just gotten out of gym class. If she could gather the confidence to just go up and talk to them-

“Naomi!”

Naomi yelped as the full force of someone wrapped their arms around her middle. She was spun in a full circle before she could tear herself free from her assailant and gather her thoughts. In front of her stood Vivian Luna, her best friend of seven years.

“Oh, my god! I haven’t seen you in so long! I love your outfit, where’d you get it? How was your summer? We have so much to catch up on!”

Naomi just smiled and took her friend by her shoulders. “Hi, Vivian,” she said in the way she does when she needs her to calm down.

Vivian gave her a big toothy smile and wrapped her up in another hug. “Wow, I’ve missed you. Oh!” she slung her backpack off her shoulder and pulled a sheet of paper out of a folder. “We need to compare schedules. Lemme see.”

Naomi obliged and grabbed her own schedule from her bag. Vivian started running down the list.

“Math, History… do we really only have two classes together? That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Naomi agreed, but maybe a little bit of separation from her best friend would be good for her this year. She didn’t voice that thought out loud, she knew it would only upset her.

“Wait.” Vivian’s voice was serious. “Why don’t you have band on your schedule?”

“Oh…” Naomi knew she was going to have to deliver the bad news to her eventually, so she might as well get it out of the way. “I’m not doing band this year.”

“What? Why?”

“I just kind of lost interest in it. It’s not like I’m gonna do it as a career or anything.”

“Me neither, I just think it’s fun. And it’s fun with you. Oh, my God, I’m gonna have to do a year of band without you. I can’t do it without you, you’re the only person I like at this school. You know what? It’s fine. I can go to Ms. Grell and switch out. What’s your elective? Maybe I can join it?”

“What? Vivian, no. You love band.”

“No, I love you. Oh, what if she doesn’t let me switch? This whole year is gonna be awful.” She lifted her arms up to her flushing face.

“Hey, hey. Come on, don’t cry.” Naomi was guiding her by her arms out of the middle of the hallway. There was no need to make a scene, especially not with the popular kids right there. Vivian was whimpering more than crying, but that was sure to turn to tears if she let it go unchecked for too long. “You don’t need to switch out of band, you love band. And you’re the most charismatic, funny person I know. I promise that whoever is sitting next to you will want to be your friend, even if it isn’t me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And we still have math and history together.”

“And lunch.”

“And lunch. See? Nothing is awful.”

“I guess.”

“I know.”

Vivian took a deep shuddering breath and shook out her hands, expelling all the sadness out through the tips of her fingers. She shook her head, then looked right at Naomi and smiled.

“All better?” Naomi ventured.

Vivian nodded her head enthusiastically.

“Great. Now let’s make our first day of school the best it can possibly be.”

\-----

To celebrate the first day of School Frankie and her friends decided to eat lunch off campus. They knew that once the school year was in full swing Shay would always be studying in the library during lunch and the vlog club would always be calling Lola down to their meeting place to discuss what dumb video they were going to put up on their YouTube channel next. Before that happened they needed to take advantage of the good weather and lack of homework and eat outside. 

They were walking down the steps of the school when she saw her.

Esme.

From the outside she looked the same as she did the year previous. Her outfit was well put together and pastel. Her long thick hair was pulled into a tight side braid. Even her face wore the resting angry face that she always had on full display. She didn’t look nearly as broken as Frankie imagined she would be. She guessed that was the purpose of the hospital. To get her back to normal. Get her better than normal, maybe, because normal for Esme was always a little too crazy for anyone who she was close with.

Frankie quicked her pace to get a few steps in front of Lola and Shay, and then she called out.

“Esme!”

She smiled big and waved her hand high above her head. She needed to look like she was actually excited to see her. She was, but for some strange reason she was a little bit scared too. But if Esme thought for a second that she was faking it she was sure that she’d turn on her immediately.

Esme stopped and turned her head. Her face didn’t crack a smile, and her eyes didn’t register any recognition. After a second of eye contact she turned away and walked the opposite direction of where Frankie was.

That… didn’t go well.

“Hey! Crazy! What are you doing?” Shay was at her side and looking aghast. Eyes wide and questioning.

“I just… thought she might want to hang out with us.”

“What? No. No. We are not hanging out with Crazy Esme.”

Frankie huffed. “Why does everyone call her that? She’s not a bad person.”

“Um. Do you remember the camping trip?”

“Yeah, but maybe she’s different now?”

“Did you speak to her at all over the summer?”

Frankie faltered. “No, but- Lola, back me up on this!”

Lola looked at her. “I’m sorry, but I’m with Shay on this.”

“Oh, come on! You’re supposed to be the understanding one.”

“I am!” Lola said. “And if Esme can prove that she’s doing okay then I’d be happy to be friends with her. But until I know that she isn’t going to assault someone or fake an allergy attack again I think I’ll just steer clear. And you probably should too.”

“Fine,” Frankie mumbled. Then an idea struck her and she smiled big at her friends. “I’ll prove that Esme is better, and then we can all be one big happy family.”

Frankie didn’t miss it when Shay and Lola shared a cautious look, but she decided to ignore their skepticism. She had a mission, and she was sure she would be able to accomplish it.

\-----

Both of the classes that Naomi shared with Vivian happened after lunch, which meant that at the first lunch of the new school year Vivan had lots of news to share with her. They ate it in the alcove, per Naomi’s request, and as she half-listened to Vivian ramble on about what she did in her Spanish class and some anime she got obsessed with over the summer, she used the corner of her eye to spy on Abra, Lara, and their lot. She noticed that Lara wore her hair up in a high bun. Naomi had her hair down around her shoulders, because she thought that was the style. Maybe the new style was to wear it up, but if she tried to do that she was sure her bangs would look terrible. She had decided to grow them out about a month ago, and they still looked strange. Or maybe Lara only looked good with her hair up because it was so straight. Naomi’s hair was uber curly, so she couldn’t directly compare herself to Lara. She wished Abra wasn’t wearing a hijab, then she would have a second popular person to compare her hair to.

She then realized she probably shouldn’t be wishing people weren’t wearing hijabs, and decided to take her previous statement back. She looked over to Vivian, who had her hair in a low ponytail. She had really pretty hair. She had really pretty everything, to tell the truth. Unfortunately she hid it all under thick rimmed glasses, no make up, and t-shirts with silly sayings on them like ‘I speak two languages, English and sarcasm’ or just pictures of cats or narwhals or whatever other animal the Internet told Vivian was funny that month.

It was a shame that until last june Naomi looked almost identical to her, minus the glasses.

When Andre Coates stood up it was hard to miss him. He was tall, broad, and well dressed. It meant that the moment he was on his feet Naomi’s attention was brought to him and the three figures who’s tops of heads didn’t reach the height of Andre’s eyes. Josiah’s short, Naomi realized. The choice between the two of them was getting more and more muddled. Andre led his posse out of the alcove and down a hallway. Naomi couldn’t crane her neck to watch them leave, because then Vivian would know she wasn’t listening to her. It didn’t matter too much. What was two more seconds of having them in her eye sight when she had already memorized what they looked like by staring at them for fifteen straight minutes?

She decided to turn her attention back to Vivian, who was gesturing wildly as she explained the plot of this anime. Naomi was fully aware that she was spoiling the whole thing for her, but it didn’t matter too much. Last year she would have continually had to cut her off to keep her appreciation of the show spoiler-free, but this year was different. She didn’t watch anime anymore, so it didn’t matter what crucial plot points Vivian told her. She nodded and smiled as she spoke, just like she was supposed to.

\-----

Baaz was the most intense person Lola knew. It was something she learned about him when she first joined All Inclusive, and it was a fact that was only being further proven when he called the first meeting to be after school on the very first day.

If she was in charge she would have let her colleagues take a break on the first day back and use it as time to catch up with friends, but she wasn’t in charge so she begrudgingly attended the meeting rather than spending her time with Frankie and Shay.

Although the other members of All Inclusive were as close to each other as she was with her friends, so maybe Baaz was just using this meeting as a hang out sesh.

She was the last to arrive at the meeting. In truth she was wasting time talking to Saad before she came, but if she needed an excuse for her tardiness she would just blame her Language Arts class for being on the other side of the school.

She didn’t need to use that excuse, though. Because when she walked in the meeting room she was met with no fanfare. No one questioned her lateness, or even said anything at all. The other four members of All Inclusive had put their chairs around a table and now sat quietly. Vijay tapped away at his phone while Hunter held his sideways, probably playing a video game. Baaz was shuffling what looked like important papers around and every once and a while making notes on his laptop. Yael was staring straight across the table, looking directly at Hunter. Lola noted that they were sitting at the very diameter of the round table. As far apart from each other as they could get.

She approached cautiously and placed her backpack down. “Hey…” she ventured.

Baaz’s head snapped up.

“Good. You’re here. We can officially call to order the first meeting of All Inclusive for the 2016-2017 school year.”

Vijay and Hunter turned their phones off and slipped them into their pockets. Lola lowered herself cautiously down into her seat.

“First order of business: Rebranding. Mostly we’ve been doing review videos, but the new trend on YouTube is veering away from that and veering towards more personal stories. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that one of the highest performing videos on our channel is Lola’s abortion story. I propose we do more content like that.”

Lola smacked her lips together once. “Well, I’m not gonna get another abortion.”

“I don’t expect you to. I, however, have a video I would like to propose.”

Vijay smiled at him. “Go for it.”

“Okay. I want to talk about what it’s like to be a brown muslim living in a mostly white, non-muslim country and how that effects my appreciation of the media I consume when I knew little of it is produced by people like me.”

Yael spoke. “That sounds really interesting.”

“I hope it will be.”

“I’ve been wanting to talk about how the options for playable characters are always male or female, I’ve never felt represented by those. It makes it hard to play my favorite games.”

Lola piped up. “I know I’m not dark skinned but there is a really big issue in the makeup industry with having very few foundation options for people of color.”

“It’s true,” Vijay said. “And I-”

Hunter cut him off. “I don’t see why we need to change.”

The room turned their attention to Hunter. He was slightly hunched over with loose pieces of his greasy hair slightly covering his face.

“Our channel was fine up unto this point, I don’t see why anything needs to be different.”

“Well,” Baaz started, “It’s the logical decision to make. Our channel will always get some views from Degrassi people, but if we don’t adapt to the outside world we’ll fall into obscurity. And what about when we graduate? Then we won’t even have the trust of our school to be our following.”

“That shouldn’t matter!” Hunter’s hand hit the table, the sound clanging out around the room. “Just because the rest of the world wants to change shouldn’t mean I have to change my segment.”

He slumped back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. The room didn’t react for a few moments.

Baaz gathered the courage to speak. “That shouldn't matter too much. You only produce a fifth of our content, so if yours doesn’t change-”

Yael cut in. “I think Hunter’s mad because he doesn’t have anything profound to say.”

“Excuse me?”

“The rest of us all have unique life experiences and you don’t have anything to reflect on other than the actual comics you’re reading. If we change this channel it’s only going to become more obvious that you don’t have any emotional stories to tell, unlike the rest of us.”

“I have plenty of emotional stories to tell!” He was up on his feet and fuming.

“Sure, why don’t you tell the world that you’re so homophobic you coudn’t see yourself dating me? I’m sure that’ll get us lots of views.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“It is and you know it.”

Baaz tentatively lifted his hand up in the air. “If we could get back on track-”

“Just because you decided to change everything doesn’t mean that you get to change the way this club works. I’m still a member and I get equal say. And I say that we don’t need to change the channel just because everyone thinks we should.” Hunter’s voice was loud. His face was contorted and turning red. Lola was turning away from him and his yelling wasn’t even directed at her.

Yael stood strong. Whatever it was about Hunter that made Lola tremble had no effect on them, or maybe they had just been around it longer.

“Hunter,” they said. “You’re acting crazy.”

Hunter lurched his body at them like he was an actor hired for a haunted house who was trying to do a jump scare. Yael didn’t flinch when he did that, but Lola most definitely did.

He pulled back, and let out a loud breath. Lola felt everyone else in the room do the same.

“Whatever,” he said. “I’m outta here.”

With that he grabbed his black backpack from under the table and turned around. His chair toppled over as he walked past it, but Lola couldn’t tell if he had kicked it over or just bumped into it. The door slammed shut like a thunderstrike when he left the room, and Lola didn’t know if that was on purpose either.

She watched Yael sit down. Their face was pale, but their hands were steady which she took as a good sign.

“You okay?” she asked from across the table. Yael nodded softly.

“Well.” Baaz announced. “With that out of the way I can start taking note of what new video ideas we have. Pitch ‘em to me as I write them down.”

Yael shuffled their chair out from the table. “Actually, I’m gonna go.”

“But we need at least four members present before finalizing any decisions!” Baaz called after them as they hurried towards the same door Hunter had just stormed out of.

“Then call it quits for the day,” they said from the door frame.

“Do you know about this week’s filming schedule? We’re doing a shoot together on Thursday at lunch.”

“Oh, my God! I know, Baaz! It’s on the shared calendar!”

They left the room, leaving the three remaining members sitting in silence.

Lola looked between Baaz and Vijay, waiting for one of them to think of something to say. When neither of them did she found her own voice. “So… I’m guessing time doesn’t heal all wounds with those two.”

“Nope,” Vijay said. “Honestly it’s only gotten worse since last year.”

Baaz looked at his phone and then stood up. He started packing away his laptop and all his folders filled with papers. “We can’t hold the rest of this meeting with just the three of us, so I’m gonna go ahead and head home early.” He zipped his bag closed and slung it over his shoulders. “I’ll see you guys on Thursday. Vijay, send me the meeting minutes when you have the chance.”

Vijay flashed him an unenthusiastic thumbs up as he left the room. When he was gone he groaned.

“What’s wrong?”

Vijay looked Lola right in her eyes. “It’s been like this all summer. It’s all okay when me, Hunter, and Baaz hang out, and it's good when me, Baaz, and Yael hang out, but the moment the other finds out that we’ve seen each other suddenly the whole conversation is about how the other person did them wrong. And Baaz was all desperate to get this running again because we had so few videos over the summer and he was worried we weren't gonna be a hit anymore. And he thinks that doing this will reunite them, but I really don’t think it will. Really, this club’s, like, five seconds from falling apart. I need to find something else to put on my applications in case it does.”

“Yeah, I probably need to do that too.”

“Probably.”

\-----

“I knew Hunter was a jerk, but I didn’t think he was that much of a jerk.”

Lola was sitting with Frankie and Shay as the three of them shared lunch the next day. Frankie was munching away at a sandwich while Shay was taking sips from her water bottle, which was filled with some mysterious and healthy looking green liquid.

“Oh, come on,” Shay said after taking the bottle away from her lips. “He’s Hunter. There’s something weird about him.”

“Yeah, weird. But not cruel,” Frankie defended.

“I’m not trying to have an opinion on this,” Lola said, although she was fully aware she was about to share her opinion on this, “but I’m siding with Yael. And I need to side with the person more willing to make this All Inclusive thing work out.”

“How’s that going?” Frankie asked.

Lola blew her cheeks out like a fish. “Bad,” she concluded.

“At least four of you guys are still functioning,” Shay reassured.

“How could you?!” The familiar voice erupted through the alcove. Lola looked up and searched for its source. She saw Hunter eating alone, she saw a group of nervous niners, she saw Abra with her friends, but she didn’t see who she knew that voice belonged to.

“How could I?” a different voice responded. “I signed up before you!”

“Yeah, and I signed up before both of you, so I should be the one who gets to do it.”

Lola identified the general direction these voices were coming from, and she only had to walk ten feet before coming upon them.

Baaz, Vijay, and Yael all stood in a dramatic triangle in front of a prominent yellow and blue sign up board. Above the sheet of paper where Lola could read all three of their names printed out in bold black pen were paper cut out red and white bubble letters that read ‘SCHOOL PRESIDENT SIGN UP.’

Oh no.

What’s up, guys?” Lola ventured cautiously.

“Lola!” Vijay exclaimed. He immediately turned back to Baaz and Yael. “I was just telling Lola yesterday that I was going to run for president. That means I shouldn’t have to be the one that steps down.”

“Is that true?” Baaz was looking right at her.

“I mean, kind of? He said he wanted to do something other than All Inclusive…”

“You’re going to quit All Inclusive?” Yael asked.

“No. That’s not what I said-”

“Do you really think you can run this school if you’re going to quit the one thing you’ve been wholly dedicated to?” Baaz accused.

“I’m not gonna quit.”

“And you.” Baaz directed his attention to Yael. “You’ve never shown interest in stuff like this. Why do you want to take it away from me?”

“I’m not taking anything away from you,” they retorted. “You haven’t even won yet.”

“But I will.”

“That’s not for sure.”

“Guys.”

“But it’s likely.”

“If you say so.”

“Guys!”

“I do say so.”

“But will you be able to prove it up on the stand?”

“GUYS.”

“What?” The three of them turned their attention to Lola. She felt the anger in their eyes bore into her.

“You don’t need to fight about this. You’ll all run and whoever wins will be the person who deserves to win. You don’t need to turn against each other over this.”

The trio stared at her. Vijay was the first to speak after a moment of silence.

“Lola’s right. When I win it’ll be because I deserve it.”

Yael grunted in frustration and turned to walk away. Baaz slinked away after them, and Vijay gave Lola a big smile and walked away too.

“So.” The voice behind her made Lola turn around to face Shay. “It seems like the All Inclusive drama just got a little more… inclusive.”

\-----

Only an insane person would assign a group project so early on in the school year, and Naomi quickly realized that Mr. Armstrong was an insane person. On the first Wednesday of the school year he had told them to partner up, and that was just what she was going to do. She spotted Lara at the front of the classroom, but before she could stand she felt a tugging at the sleeve of her shirt.

“Partners?” Vivian asked.

“Um…” Naomi kept her eyes trained on Lara, it didn’t look like she was partnered up yet. “I was kind of thinking about branching out a little bit this year.”

“But we’re always partners.” Vivian’s voice was low and quite, Naomi just hoped she wouldn’t start crying.

“Only in the classes we have together. You do group work in other classes, right?”

“I know, but-”

“And we’re hanging out after schools anyways.”

“I know, but-”

“And I promise it’s just this once.”

“...Okay.”

“You’re the best!” Naomi gave her a quick hug and skipped to the front of the room. There were nerves in her stomach, but this was her chance at an in with Lara.

“Lara?”

The girl turned around. She smiled big, even though they barely knew each other. That was what she liked so much about her. She was kind to strangers and popular and beautiful. Naomi could only hope to be like her.

“Do you think we could partner for this assignment?”

“Oh.” Lara’s head tilted to one side as her face filled with pity. “Sorry, but I’m already with Abra for this one.”

Abra leaned her head out. Naomi didn’t understand how she had missed her, but she had. “Okay,” she said, defeated.

Of course. Of course that happened. Did she really think that Lara was just going to be her friend immediately? There were going to be setbacks, and she was going to be okay with that. Now at least she wouldn’t be disappointing Vivian. Should she have felt worse about ditching her than she did? She had hardly felt anything when she sought out Lara, and now here she was, tracing the walk of shame back to Vivian’s desk.

“Hey, false alarm. We actually can partner.”

Vivian still looked sad, but she couldn’t detect if any tears had fallen.

“Oh,” Vivian said. She looked next to her, where a boy with long brown hair had taken Naomi’s seat. “I’m actually already with…” she trailed off, seemingly unsure of this boy’s name.

“Kat,” he said. Funny name for a boy, Naomi thought, but no matter. She would just need to find someone else.

“Is everyone partnered up?” Mr. Armstrong asked from the front of the room. There was a resounding ‘yes’ that came from every voice box in the room except Naomi’s.

She raised her arm in the air. “Mr. Armstrong? I don’t have a partner.”

“Of course. You can join Lara and Abra up here.”

Huh. Maybe it was meant to be after all.

She walked to the front of the room and pulled an open chair to the desk where Lara and Abra sat. They both smiled big when she arrived. She was wanted. That was always something she loved to know. Her feelings of guilt about ditching Vivian faded away as she found her comfort in these two new girls.

Mr. Armstrong explained the gist of the assignment to them, and once they were dismissed to start working Naomi was surprised to find that she wasn’t the only one doing work. Lara and Abra were kind, popular, beautiful, and smart. It was a combination of traits that no high school TV show had ever written to all be possessed by one person. And they were traits possessed by two people. She put her share into the work, Lara led the charge while Abra added something only every once and while, but she still had smart things to say when she needed to. They got all the work that they needed to be done with that day in half an hour, and it gave them plenty of time to chat afterwards. And there were lots things that Naomi wanted to chat about.

“I love your hair,” Naomi said. It was what she had wanted to say since the first day of school. Lara had worn her hair in a high bun everyday since then, and Naomi was worried she was missing some huge fashion trend. Lara smiled and thanked her. “Do you think I should do mine up like yours?”

“No. Your curls are to die for. If I had hair like that I would one hundred percent wear it down.”

“Really? I always thought they were kind of annoying, and I’m growing out bangs right now and it always gets in my eyes.”

“You just need a hairband,” Abra added.

“I know, but none of the ones I have match my outfit.” That was a lie. Naomi didn’t have any hairbands because she and Vivian swore off wearing them in grade six when ‘Hairband Hannah’ mocked Naomi’s weight. Well jokes on Hannah, because she had to leave all her friends and move to Texas before grade nine started, and Naomi got a growth spurt that redistributed most of her extra fat.

“We can take you shopping,” Lara said.

“Really? Wouldn’t that be kind of weird?” Naomi wanted to be friends with them, but she hadn’t expected to be so successful right away.

“Not weird at all.” Lara reached out her hand to hold Naomi’s. She held tight. “I can tell you’re really cool, and everyone knows that all great friendships start with a super fun shopping adventure. Are you free this afternoon?”

She was not, but they didn’t need to know that. “Yeah!”

“Awesome. We can catch the bus downtown. What’s your Hastygram? I’ll need to follow you.”

Naomi happily gave it to them, and she smiled through the whole rest of math class. Lara and Abra were even cooler than she imagined, and they were so willing to welcome her into the friend group. Sure, she was supposed to hang out with Vivian that afternoon, but she was sure she’d understand. Vivian was cool like that. It was the only context in which Naomi would describe her as cool at all. Lara and Abra were cool cool, and she was going to go shopping with them.

\-----

When Thursday came around Lola had a small sliver of hope in her heart that all the student council drama would have withered away and died in the few days since she had hung out will all the members of All Inclusive in one setting, but when she arrived to the lunchtime shoot she was instantly aware that that hope was nothing but an idealistic dream.

She, Yael, and Baaz were the only people called for the shoot. The two of them were sitting at different tables, backs facing each other. They both clicked away at their laptops furiously. She looked over Yael’s shoulder, just to see what they were doing. On their computer was a blown up picture of their face accented in purples and yellows. The text above the photo of their head were the words ‘Degrassi’s First Mx. President.’

“Lookin good,” Lola said.

“Thanks.”

She was taking sides, she realized. She couldn’t Yael and say nothing to Baaz. She turned around to look at him. His computer was open to photoshop, he typed at his keyboard and a campaign slogan appeared in large text over a picture of his face. ‘Have No Fear, Vote Nahir,’ it said.

Baaz swiveled around in his chair to look at Lola. “It’s so people know how to pronounce my name before I say it out loud.”

“Clever.”

When neither of them said anything after that it became obvious that she was the one who was going to have to get this meeting started.

“So.” She clapped her hands together. “Are we ready to shoot?”

The two of them didn’t say anything in response, they just pushed out their chairs and moved to the set that Baaz had set up earlier. It was simple, Lola usually went for something more extravagant when decorating for her makeup videos, but Baaz and Yael were simple people who wanted their videos to be about the topic at hand rather than whatever things were hanging in the background. They sat themselves at the desk that was lightly decorated with a laptop that Hunter bought for cheap, a small potted plant, and a Funko Pop figure of one of the characters from Realm of Doom.

“Okay,” Lola said once they were in place and in frame. She turned on the camera and got it focused on them. “Starting in Three, two…” she mouthed ‘one’ and then pointed towards them. 

“Hello everyone,” Yael started. “The other day me and my-” they faltered. “-friend Baaz watched Realm of Doom: Origins, the movie adaptation of one of my personal favorite video games. Although reviews of this movie were generally positive, I’ve had some qualms about it, like-”

Baaz cut them off. “While I found the movie to be quite masterful.”

Yael looked at him with one eyebrow quirked. “Right…” They cleared their throat. “Baaz and I have discussed this beforehand, of course. But we’d like to share our opinions with the world. I’m an avid player of the game, so the fact that this movie defined what is pre-canon truth and what was just fan speculation really irked me, and-”

Baaz cut them off once again. “I found the cinematography quite fascinating, and I liked that even someone who wasn’t a fan of the game could’ve enjoyed the movie.”

Lola watched Yael’s shoulders sag as they switched out of their ‘on-camera’ attitude. “What are you doing?” they asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not saying what we agreed you were gonna say.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Yeah but not in the order we agreed on. I would introduce the movie and my opinion on it, you would disagree, then I’d go on to explain what I liked and you’d say what you didn’t-”

“Yeah, but we’re allowed to go off script.”

“You’re allowed to be flexible. We still need to say what we planned on saying.”

“I don’t think the way you’ve planned this video is very well thought out.”

“Okay,” Lola cut in. The red light on top of the camera blinded out as she pressed the off button. “This obviously isn’t working, I propose we put this on hold until you two can focus a little better.”

“We are focused,” they said at the same time.

Lola smiled at them. “Given the fact that I just got three minutes of unusable footage, I would disagree. We’ll just wait to film this until after the election, okay?”

“After the election?” Baaz looked panicked. “This video needs to get up this week or else we’ll lose subscribers.”

“Then we can film it during the weekend,” Lola proposed. “But this-” she gestured to the two of them, “-isn’t working.”

“Lola’s right,” Yael said. They stood up and walked over to where they left their backpack. “And I have a history test to study for anyways.” Before leaving the room they turned around to look at Baaz. “See you at the debate.” They were gone.

Baaz stood up and stared Lola down. “Thanks for that.” Lola shrugged. “We could’ve gotten it done, and now our whole schedule is off.”

He stormed out of the room.

Great. Lola thought. Now Baaz is mad at her and Vijay and Yael. And Hunter’s mad at all of them. Vijay was right when he predicted the whole club was going to fall apart, and it looked like she was the only one who was going to be able to put it back together.

She just needed a plan

\-----

Lola tugged hard on Saad’s arm as she winded through the seats to Frankie and Shay. About a hundred hard plastic chairs had been unstacked from the place they usually lived in the corner of the gym to be spread out into an audience that took up about half the giant room. Only about a third of them were filled with people, which really showed how many of the students actually had Panther Pride. Still, Shay cared about stuff like this, Lola needed to see how all of it played out, and Frankie went where Shay and Lola went. Lola was surprised to see Hunter sitting on the other side of her sister, but she supposed he was in the middle of all this drama just like her. He was probably there for the same reason she was.

Once she and Saad were comfortably in their seats She watched Principle Simpson take the stand. On stage were three wood podiums, each decorated with one of the three campaign posters. Yael, Baaz, and Vijay stood tall and proud behind their podiums, but were clearly giving the other two stink eye whenever they had the opportunity.

Simpson stood at the mic on stage left and started speaking. “Welcome, Degrassians. Thank you all who have decided to come, this should prove to be an interesting debate. The three people before you all wish to be your president, and on this stage this afternoon they will make the claims of why they deserve your vote. The first question I have for the candidates is: Why do you want to be president and what qualifies you for the position? Vijay, you have the floor first.”

“Thank you, Principal Simpson,” Vijay started. “My name is Vijay Maraj and I would like to be president because I am passionate about this school. Last year I was voted president of our QSA and that is a position I still hold. I wish to listen to the people of Degrassi and respond to the problems they propose as they come to me in real time. If you vote for me, I promise that I will take any issues you have with this school, your classes, or anything else to heart.”

“Thank you, Vijay.” Simpson pointed towards Yael. “Your response?”

Yael cleared their throat and smiled out at the audience. “I wish to be the voice of the people. I have a unique perspective of this school as a Jewish, genderqueer student. As president I will amplify the voices of all minority groups who feel underrepresented by our faculty. I am also a member of Degrassi’s well-known YouTube channel All Inclusive, and if you wish to see my credentials you can watch the videos that I’ve developed, edited, and starred in all while maintaining peace with my co-workers and keeping a high grade point average. Thank you.”

“Okay. Baaz?” Simpson looked on to the final candidate.

Baaz smirked at his principal, and grabbed the microphone at his podium. Instead of speaking into it like Vijay and Yael did, he pulled it off its stand and walked around to the center of the stage. He wasn’t an intimidating figure. He was short and skinny and he dressed like a bullied nerd from a cruddy 80’s movie, but the simple choreography of him moving in front of his competition instantly made Lola scared of what he was about to say.

“Mr. Maraj,” he started. His cocky voice let Lola know her instant fear was the correct reaction. He was going to tear his competition apart. “It’s interesting that you mention being the leader of our QSA. Presumably that position would be appointed to someone who respects all members of the LGBT community, and yet last year you posted a video on your personal YouTube channel outing the former Degrassi president, Zoe Rivas.”

Vijay scoffed. “You’re taking that out of-”

Baaz had already moved on. “And Yael. You claim that your identity allows you to be the voice of Degrassi’s minorities. But what about minorities you don’t understand the struggles of? I believe that last year you accused a brown immigrant student of a bomb threat, is that correct?”

Lola felt Saad tighten next to her. Yael took in a short breath. “Yes, but it wasn’t racist. I had reason to believe that-”

“Degrassi,” Baaz addressed. “I want you to think hard before casting your vote tomorrow. You could vote for my opposition, but if you still want them to be the leader of this school after what I have exposed them of today then I hope that you will reassess your biases. And if you aren’t sure who to vote for even after this, then I remind you to Have No Fear, Vote Nahir!”

Baaz made his way back to his podium, a smug expression splayed out on his face. Vijay and Yael looked entirely unimpressed. There were quite murmurs throughout the gym.

Simpson spoke into the microphone, reining back his control. “Um. Okay then. Next question-”

“Oh, please.” Yael’s amplified voice reverberated through the whole gym. “As if you don’t have anything you want to hide.” They faced the whole gym and spoke without any tremor in their voice. “Baaz Nahir sexualizes just about every woman he comes across.”

“Yael!” Baaz’s eyes were wide, his lips splayed out in a tight frown.

“That’s true,” Vijay corroborated. “He told me that the only reason he let a woman join our club is because he found her attractive.”

Lola cringed.

“Vijay!” Baaz yelled. His loud voice caused feedback in his microphone. “I told you that in confidence!”

Simpson grabbed his microphone. “If the candidates would like to get back on track that would be greatly appreciated.”

“If we’re going to start exposing each other I have plenty of dirt on these two!” Baaz yelled.

“Yeah, and we’ve got plenty of stuff on you,” Yael said. “Actually, I’ve got some stuff on Vijay too.”

“Are you really going to share it, though?” Vijay asked. “Because it isn’t like I don’t have any ammunition either.”

All three of them started yelling things. Some were true, some Lola had never heard before. She buried her face in her hands. If this was how they were going to behave in public then she had no faith that All Inclusive would ever be able to function again.

\-----

“So that was eventful,” Frankie said. She, Lola, Shay, Hunter, and Saad were all exiting the gym together.

Lola groaned. It couldn’t have turned out any worse than it did.

“Any idea who you’re going to vote for?” Shay asked her.

“None at all,” she lamented.

“I’ll probably vote for Yael,” Frankie said.

“Really?” Saad questioned. “Even after what she did to me?”

“They,” Lola corrected. Saad nodded his acknowledgment

Frankie sighed. “Right. Vijay, then?”

“I was thinking Baaz,” Shay said.

“Ew. Really?”

“Sure.” Shay shrugged. “He’s in some of my classes, he’s really smart. And he’s never been creepy to me.”

“Maybe he’s not creepy to you because he doesn’t like black girls,” Frankie suggested. Shay sighed. Lola was sad to think that she would believe it if that were true. “What about you, Hunter?”

Hunter looked up. “Probably none of them. I went in there trying to decide if I was going to go for Vijay or Baaz, but I’m pretty sure they all suck equally.”

Saad sighed. “I’m pretty sure you’re right.”

The conversation moved on, but Lola’s thoughts stayed on that matter. No one wanted to vote for any of them. 

At least she knew what she was going to say at the next All Inclusive meeting.

\-----

With just a hairband, Naomi suddenly knew exactly where she belonged. If she thought she was cool on the first day of school, then she was legendary by the end of the first week. A red headband kept her long bangs out of her eyes, and a brand new daisy-patterned tube top let her look flawless as she strutted down the halls. She entered the alcove and spotted them immediately. Her new lunch buddies, Abra and Lara. Andre and Josiah were there too, and if she played her cards right she was about to befriend them as well.

“Naomi!” 

Vivian appeared next to her, bouncing in place, her smile wide and toothy.

“Where’re you going? We always sit on that side.” She pointed in the opposite direction of where Naomi truly wanted to eat lunch.

“Right. I’m eating lunch with Lara and Abra today.”

“Oh.” Her wide and toothy smile disappeared. “ Why?”

“They invited me.”

“Can I join?”

“They don’t really know you.”

“Well, it’s not like they know you either.”

“But-” Naomi drew in a sharp breath. “-they’re not like you. Look at how you dress, and you talk about stuff they don’t care about. I just don’t think you’d get along very well.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not about you, and it’s just for today. We’ll totally eat lunch together Monday.”

“Right.”

“Don’t be sad, okay? It’s natural to want more friends than just one person. This was bound to happen.”

“But I don’t want any friends other than you. And now you’re abandoning me.”

“I’m not abandoning you, I’m giving you the opportunity to meet new people. What about Kat from math class? He seems cool.”

“She’s boring. And I don’t want to be friends with Kat, I want to be friends with you.”

“We are friends.”

Vivian shook her head and rubbed her face. “You’re not acting like it.”

Naomi was starting to get a little frustrated. Vivian was blowing this way out of proportion, and if she didn’t get out of this conversation fast Lara and Abra were going to start wondering where she was. And she wasn’t about to tell them she was trying to keep her geeky friend from having a full blown breakdown in the middle of the school. She just wanted to meet new people, was that so bad? It was something that she thought Vivan would want as well. It wasn’t like she was completely abandoning her or anything, it was just going to be one lunch period.

But it might not be today's lunch period. Naomi sighed. “Look, if it’s that big of a deal I can text Lara and we can-”

“No. No, no need. Go ahead. I’ll be fine.” Her voice was tight, Naomi had the distinct impression that she wouldn’t be fine, but if it meant that she got to have lunch with the people she actually wanted to eat with she would have to be okay with that.

“Great! Thank you, you’re so understanding.” When she hugged her she felt a distinct lack of reciprocation. “I’ll see you in class?” She watched her nod and then walked away.

“Hey, girl!” Lara said as she approached her new lunch partners. “Naomi, this is Andre and Josiah.” She gestured to the two dudes that Naomi was already fully aware of the existence of. “Guys, this is Naomi.”

“Hi,” she said. Now that she was actually face to face with these potential friends/boyfriends her nerves were much higher.

“Hey,” Andre said.

“Naomi. You Jewish?”

“Yep!”

“Josiah Shapiro.” Josiah said. He held out his hand for Naomi to shake, and she took it. “Canada’s favorite Jew.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” She laughed and smiled. She hoped Josiah thought she was being charming, instead of a giggle idiot.

Naomi took her seat in between Lara and Josiah, feeling right at home.

“You know,” Josiah said, “I’ve been saying for forever that we’ve needed a hot Jewish woman in our friend group, and we finally got one.” He stretched out his arm and put it around Naomi’s shoulder. He was a little stinky, but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he had just come from gym class.

“Don’t be gross!” Lara said, slapping Josiah in the knee. Josiah took her advice and lifted his arm off Naomi’s shoulder. She was disappointed when he did, she hadn’t had a boy actually touch her in a very long time. And she hadn’t even found what he said gross at all. One of the best looking guys in grade 10 just called her hot to her face. He wasn’t mocking her, he wasn’t lying. All that made her think one thing.

She was going to make Josiah Shapiro her boyfriend.

\-----

Lola stood at the front of the meeting room. Before her were some of the people she cared about most in the world, and she was about to tell them that they all sucked equally. She even had it written down on the white board at her back.

Vijay raised his hand. She pointed at him. Usually their meetings were held around a table to show that they all have equal say, but this was a special meeting. This was an emergency meeting, and she was the one who needed to be totally in charge. Which meant the others needed to be called on by Lola Pacini before speaking.

“What does ‘You All Suck Equally’ mean?” Vijay asked, in reference to the white board.

Lola smiled at him. “Thank you for asking. I’ve called this meeting to discuss something that we all saw go down yesterday: The debate. I’m sure you’re all aware that it didn’t go the way any of you planned, and the whole thing was messy in general. I did some interviews afterwards, and discovered that because of how you all presented yourselves the general consensus of the school is that they have no idea who to vote for, because they believe-” she directed their attention to the board, “-You All Suck Equally.”

Hunter raised his hand, but he didn’t wait for Lola to call on him before speaking like Vijay did. “What does this have to do with me?”

Lola thought on it, then answered. “Nothing, really. But you’re in the club so you’re at this meeting.”

“Great,” Hunter mumbled as he slouched back in his chair.

“So you called this meeting just to insult us?” Yael asked.

“No, I-” Lola took a deep breath and started over. “I care a lot about all of you, and I care a lot about this club. I know that I haven’t been friends with you guys as long as you have with each other, but you mean a lot to me and I would hate to see this frienship fall apart just because of a dumb school election that won’t matter once we graduate anyways.”

Vijay and Baaz shared a look. Lola couldn’t tell if it was one of distrust or skepticism or what, but the fact that they were making eye contact at all was a good sign in her books.

“So what do you want us to do?” Yael asked.

“I want you three to make a promise, that no matter who wins, or who gets to be VP, that there will be no hard feelings no matter what, and that once this is all over we get to go back to being one big happy family. Okay?”

The room took in a collective skeptical breath.

“That’s… a lot of demands,” Baaz observed.

“But doable demands,” Yael added.

“And I think we’re all willing to do them,” Vijay stated.

“So…” Lola tried to read the room. “We’re all good then?”

The three of them nodded.

Lola jumped in place a bit and squealed. Her plan had worked out just as she planned. The drama had been avoided, and it was all thanks to her. She collected herself and stared down her three friends. “And now we need to make it official with a group hug.”

“Yes!” Vijay said as he jumped to his feet.

“No.” Yael and Baaz said at the same time.

“Oh, come on!” Lola complained, an arm already wrapped around Vijay’s waist. “You haven’t actually promised anything until we hug it out.”

Yael groaned and got to their feet. “Fine. But only because I’ve really, really missed having you guys as friends.” They smiled and joined Lola and Vijay in the middle of the room.

“Me too,” Baaz said, following them. “I kinda just realized I don’t have anyone else other than you guys.”

“That’s okay. Because when you have us you don’t need anyone else.” Lola welcomed Baaz to the hug and they all held on tight. It felt good to have the three of them by her side. They were messy people, but they were good. They were forgiving and kind, and no matter what happened she would have them.

Before the hug was released she opened her eyes just in time to see Hunter leave the room. His face wasn’t scowling or hard. When she saw his expression it brought a deep sadness to her. His eyes were glassy and his shoulders hunched, his lips tugged slightly downwards.

When the hug pulled apart he was gone, and the rest of All Inclusive was smiling.

\----

Mission Convince Her Friends That Esme Was A Good Person Now was ago, but it was not ago-ing very quickly. Frankie herself still hadn’t managed to get in contact with her. She had texted her a few times over the summer, but none of them were met with replies. School starting didn’t prove to make talking to her any easier, even though Frankie saw Esme in the halls of their school three separate times just in the first week.

Her chance to speak to her came when she was returning to class on the first Friday with a yellow bathroom pass in her hand. Esme was walking the opposite direction. With no one else being in the hallway made this the perfect opportunity.

“Esme!”

Esme froze where she was. Her face wasn’t scared, which Frankie took as a good sign, and she didn’t run in the opposite direction, which Frankie took as an even better sign.

“Are you skipping class?” Frankie asked. 

She looked at her like she was stupid, whcih maybe she was.

“I have a counseling appointment.”

“Oh.” That made a lot more sense. “I’ve been trying to talk to you. Have you seen.”

Esme took a moment to herself. “Yes.”

“Well, do you want to hang out? I’m free this afternoon if you want to come over.”

Esme’s face never changed when she was thinking about things. That was something Frankie had first noticed back when they were dating Zig. It meant that it was really hard to get a read on her, and this moment was no different.

“I guess,” Esme settled on, never once letting her true emotions about the topic show.

“Cool! Um.” Frankie looked at the doorway to her class room. She needed to get back quickly, or else her teacher would think she was using this bathroom break as an excuse to do something more sinister. “We can meet at the front door when school’s out? I need to drive Hunter home too, but once we’re there we’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”

“Sure,” Esme said. She checked the expensive watch around her wrist. “I need to go.”

“Yeah, me too.” But Esme was already walking away, having made it through that whole conversation without cracking a smile once.Frankie wasn’t totally surprised she acted like that, she was just happy that she agreed to hang out with her at all.

\-----

The announcement for school president was supposed to come out right at the end of school. Lola had made Vijay, Baaz, and Yael to all agree to meet in the All Inclusive room when it happened. She was surprised she managed to convince Yael and Baaz to skip school for this, even if it was only for a few minutes. Lola slipped out of her math class five minutes before the final bell rang, and when she got to the meeting room the rest of them were already there. 

No one said anything. Theyjust sat in silence as they awaited Principal Simpson’s voice over the loudspeaker. 

Then it finally came.

“Good afternoon, Degrassi. Student volunteers have spent today counting the votes for this year’s president, and the results are in. Your president will be…”

The room held its breath.

“Yael Baron, and your vice president is Vijay Maraj. Congrats you two, I trust you will run the school with dignity and respect.”

The loudspeaker clicked off. 

\-----

Hunter rushed to his own room the moment Frankie put the car in park, which left her and Esme alone. They were about to have a true heart to heart for the first time since last June, and she could only hope that it went well.

“Wanna go to my room?” Frankie suggested.

Esme nodded, and she guided her upstairs.

Diana was working late that day, which was lucky because it had hardly been a week since she had told her that under no circumstance was she allowed to hang out with Esme, and Frankie was already disobeying her. Hunter was right, it was The Hollingsworth Way.

Nothing special happened when the two of them entered Frankie’s room. They spent plenty of time there together last year, and even under these strange circumstances it didn’t feel weird to be with her. Esme approached her bed and reached out. She fiddled with the bright purple tassels that Frankie had put up. Her face stayed still.

“These are new,” she said.

“Yeah! What do you think?”

Esme dropped her hand and walked away from them. “Pretty,” she said.

Frankie sat down on her bed. The whole giant house was quiet, and her nerves were building in her chest. She needed to think of something to say before Esme realized how awful this was and high tailed it out of there.

“So… what’d you do this summer?”

“Therapy, mostly.”

“Oh.” This was not going well. “Is that going good?”

“Sort of.”

Esme was standing in front of Frankie’s desk now. The wood of her desk was white and there was a three fold mirror in front of it covered in funny stickers and pictures of her and her friends. There were no pictures of her and Esme, despite all their history. She was going to need to change that. 

“Is this your diary?” Esme picked up a composition notebook from the top of the desk. Frankie had mod podged pictures from magazines all over it, and she was quite proud of it.

The outside, that is. The inside was for no one’s eyes except her own.

“Yes,” she said, already on her feet trying to take it from Esme’s hands. She didn’t need to, though, because Esme put it down before even trying to open it. She ran her hands over the dresses hung up on the clothes rack outside of Frankie’s closet.

Suddenly she turned around. The two of them were on their feet and facing each other, in a room that used to be a place for them to meet and have fun, but now it felt more sacred than that. “Can I ask you something?”

Frankie was unsure where she was going with this. “Sure.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was awful to you last year. I used you. And now you’re the one reaching out to me, and inviting me over to your house, like nothing ever happened. I just don’t get why you didn’t turn on me like everyone else at that awful school did.”

“Because-” She expected an easy answer to come to her, but she had to actually think about that one. Why didn’t she turn on her? Esme had said it herself on that god awful camping trip last year, that the only reason she let Frankie date Zig was to keep him interested in her. She abandoned her in the woods, she faked an allergy attack, she hurt Zig, but at the end of it all - even back then - Frankie was the only one by her side. Then the summer starts up and Esme ignores her for months. She avoids her in the school hallways until a moment where she literally can’t escape her. Then when they start talking again she never once smiles or cracks a joke or does any of the things that Frankie once loved about her. But still she doesn’t want to turn on her. “I guess I just care about you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my friend, and I love you.”

“But you have other friends. Why would you want me too.”

“I can love more than one person at a time.”

Frankie wondered if she understood what she was saying. Last year Esme always acted like it was her and Zig versus everyone else. 

“Lola and Shay hate me, though.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“So they do hate me?”

“No, no. Esme, this isn’t about them. This is about us. Sure, we all have crap in our past, but I think that we can make it through that. I think this relationship-” she gestured between the two of them “-can survive that.”

Esme smiled. It was quick and sweet, but it was all that Frankie needed to see to know that she had succeeded. Esme was convinced, and maybe she still didn’t have the proof she needed for Shay and Lola that she wasn’t still crazy, but it was a solid start.

Then Esme did something that convinced her of the opposite, something that got her thinking that maybe she was crazy after all.

She kissed her. 

Her lips were soft, as most lips are, but the contact was too brief for Frankie to get a real gage on the situation. It wasn’t deep, it was just a graze across her lips, an invitation for something further. When they broke apart she saw Esme’s eyes go from closed to open, but Frankie’s had never shut. Esme’s smile dropped off her face the moment she saw Frankie’ mouth, which was slightly agape.

“That was…” Esme trailed off.

“Its fine!” Frankie assured her. She put a smile on, this wasn’t the thing that was going to discourage her. She could still make this work. “It’s totally fine, you just read the room wrong, that’s all.”

“So you didn’t like it?”

Frankie wondered how she was supposed to answer her, and then realized. She needed to be truthful. If they were actually going to be friends then she needed to be honest right from the start. “Not really. I’m straight.”

“Right.” Esme’s body deflated into a ottoman sitting at the edge of Frankie’s bed. “I’m sorry, that was so crazy of me.”

“No, it wasn’t. Here, we can just pretend it never happened. Okay?”

Esme smiled. Big and real. “Okay.”


	2. Episode 2: We Don't Talk Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vivian causes drama in band class, Shay makes a new friend, and Esme works on her relationship with Frankie.

Just as Vivian predicted, band class was miserable without Naomi by her side. There was no fun to be had warming up her instrument if her best friend wasn’t by her side running through the major scales with her. And being in last chair was way worse when there wasn’t someone you liked sitting next to you. Without her Vivian had to stumble through her scales on her own and avoid eye contact with the smelly boy who replaced Naomi in second-to-last chair.

It was a few weeks into the school year, and even though Naomi had assured her that they would be able to make friends without damaging their own friendship, Vivian was starting to see that that was far from true. She had basically been abandoned for hotter, cooler people that Naomi had nothing in common with. And Vivian couldn’t find anyone who wanted to talk to her. The moment she started info-dumping or talking a bit too loud they would turn away from her and start up a conversation with someone else.

At least in band class everyone had an instrument in their mouth and no one expected her to have a conversation with anyone.

Ms. Rawlings raised her baton and the room quieted. Vivian lowered the trombone from her lips.

“Thank you, band,” Ms. Rawlings said once the room was totally quiet. “Get out your sheet music, we’re going to run it from the top. Let’s just see what we remember from yesterday.”

Vivian pulled the music out from her folder and placed it on her music stand. If this was last year this would have been the perfect opportunity to say something funny and quick to Naomi, but there was no one by her side who she wanted to talk to. Just the smelly second-to-last trombone player and the geeky looking first chair trumpeter. She wasn’t judging him for looking geeky, she was just observing. Vivian stared down at her music to avoid eye contact with anyone around her.

This was stupid. She should’ve just transferred out of band when she had the chance, but Naomi told her she was going to make friends. That wasn’t true. She was pretty sure it was the first time Naomi said something that wasn’t true. She was the one person Vivian trusted about everything. She told her all her secrets, and she assumed that Naomi did the same. But she never told her that she secretly wanted to be popular, or that she secretly hated band, or that she secretly hated Vivian herself.

The music started playing. Vivian had missed her cue. She yanked the trombone up to her lips and tried to find where they were in the music, came in a few bars late, stopped playing, and then tried a second time. They were about a third of the way through the song before Vivian was actually on beat with the rest of the band. She just hoped no one noticed.

Despite the messy runthrough, Ms. Rawlings managed to guide the band through the whole song. When she cut them off parts of the room laughed. Ms. Rawling, however, looked totally serious. Her face was pinched and her thin arms folded across her chest. That combined with her skinny oval glasses and tight bun she had the distinct impression of a stingy librarian in a too-loud room.

She didn’t do anything to indicate the room needed to be quieter, one look at Ms. Rawlings and they realized it on their own.

“Why are you guys laughing?”

No one answered.

“That was a mess. Last week this song sounded fine, and now it sounds like you guys have never played it before. Does anyone want to tell me why?”

No one answered.

“Okay, then. First, I want to talk to the clarinets.”

Once Ms. Rawling started her instructions for the clarinets, Vivian decided it was time to zone out. She’d probably get a few minutes of daydreaming in before Ms. Rawlings made her way to the trombone section.

Her daydreaming plans were quickly interrupted by someone in front of her. Vivian was in the second row of the semicircle of chairs, and directly in front of her were the flutes. The First Chair Flute, to be precise.

The First Chair Flute was a skinny girl with silky blonde hair and soft blue eyes. Those eyes were the only part of her that could be described as soft, though, as the rest of her expression was hard set with disgust. Disgust directed straight at Vivian.

“Could you try playing a little quieter next runthrough?”

“I guess,” Vivian mumbled. She didn’t need to be humiliated by this girl, and she didn’t want to be yelled at by Ms. Rawlings for talking out of turn.

“And maybe do us all a favor and stop dressing like that. We’re supposed to be the best high school band in the city. You should try to make it look like that.” Then First Chair Flute flipped around, as if she hadn’t just offhandedly said the meanest thing Vivian had heard directed at her.

That day, at least.

She stared down at her hands. She could try playing quieter if that was better for the band, but she couldn’t do much about what she was wearing. What was wrong with her outfit anyways? It was just jeans and a t-shirt. Maybe it was her thin framed glasses, or her hair that she never bothered styling. It wasn’t even like First Chair Flute was wearing anything outstanding. She was in a pair of skinny jeans and a tight yellow shirt. Her face was covered in a thin layer of makeup and she was really, really pretty. Like Naomi, Vivian thought. It was a painful thing to have in her head, because First Chair Flute was so mean and Naomi was so nice. Usually. Vivian hadn’t been all that attracted to this New Naomi her friend was becoming, but she thought that maybe one day Old Naomi would come back.

She could only hope.

“Don’t listen to her.”

Vivian turned her head to the left. It was the geeky first chair trumpet boy.

“I’m sorry?”

“I think you play really well. And I like your shirt. Do you watch Mistress Myth?”

Vivian looked down. Her purple t-shirt featured the sword-wielding, badass titular main character from Mistress Myth on it. She was amazed that anyone knew what it was, it was a pretty obscure anime. She had to go searching deep on the Internet to find any merch from it.

“Yeah,” she said.

“I love that show. Do you watch Bad Formula?”

“No, but I’ve been meaning to get around to it. Do you watch Last Devil Sorcerer?”

“Yes! I love that show.”

“Vivian.” Ms. Rawlings’s voice rang out like a bell. “Please be quiet, I’m in the middle of something.”

“I’m sorry,” Vivian mumbled.

“Ms. Rawlings?” First Chair Trumpet said. “I was the one talking.”

“Then you need to be quiet too.” She turned her attention back to the clarinets.

Vivian let her teacher be at peace for a few seconds before starting up talking again.

“You didn’t need to do that,” she whispered.

“I know.” First Chair Trumpet put out his hand. “I’m Julio.”

She shook it. “Vivian.”

He nodded. “It’s nice to have someone here to talk to.” His smile was genuine when he said it.

Ms. Rawlings moved on to the trumpets, which meant that Julio had to pay attention to her. 

Vivian spent the rest of band class paying attention to him. He was a skinny guy with big brown hair that splayed out in a messy-yet-attractive way. He was wearing a printed t-shirt and cargo shorts. Vivian appreciated the functionality of his outfit, and knew that if she was a boy she would be wearing the exact same thing as him. His face was angular and home to quite a few pimples, but everyone got pimples so that didn’t bother her at all. His skin was slightly tan, and his lips full. She only noticed the lips thing because Ms. Rawlings asked him to lead by example with a solo, and his expert lips and fingers guided his trumpet through the music without fail. It was gorgeous. And with all that he was also kind to her, of all people, and he liked the same shows as her. She wanted to ask him if he read the manga for Mistress Myth as well. If he watched subs or dubs. What did he like other than anime? Did he like romance? Fantasy? Thriller? What music did he listen to? What was his favorite class? Was he smart? What was his family like? Did he like them? Who was he friends with? Did he want to be friends with her?

A million thoughts gathered in her mind, but she didn’t have the time to ask any of them that class period. Still, when Ms. Rawlings asked the trombones to run through their solos Julio gave her a big smile when she did hers, even though she messed up a little.

Vivian had seen a lot of changes in Naomi since the start of the school year, but she hoped deep in her heart that she was still correct about one thing. She hoped that Naomi was right in saying that whoever sat next to her in band class was destined to love her.

\-----

Esme’s mind didn’t travel far from the kiss for a few days afterwards. She kept going back to it. She remembered everything. The ways Frankie’s room had changed, the way Frankie hadn’t. The way she’d said ‘relationship’ instead of ‘friendship.’ Frankie knew what she was doing, she must have known that she was flirting with her, and for some reason she still backed off when she’d made the first move.

She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t pissed.

At least it gave her fuel for her therapy session.

Dr. Elizabeth Shepherd’s office was on the third floor of an insignificant building in downtown Toronto. It was a hassle to get there, but with the high praise that Liz received, it was worth it. To Mr. Song it was, anyways. To Esme, Liz was just another shrink who did her job just as well as everyone else she’d seen in her life.

At least Liz decorated her room in a way that made it seem like she was a real person. Nothing felt like forced comfort. Esme appreciated it, since she’d been seeing Liz for close to two months and she still wasn’t quite sure if she’d describe herself anscomfortable when in the room with her.

“How are you doing today, Esme?” Liz asked. It was what she asked Esme twice a week. The wording never changed, and the emphasis of the sentence was always placed on Esme’s name.

Esme shrugged from her spot on the couch. Just like Liz, Esme had her own twice weekly rituals. Every Saturday and Tuesday she delayed answering Liz’s probing questions for the first few minutes of the session.

“Did you have a good first week of school?”

Esme scoffed. “As good as it could be.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that it was fine, considering everyone in that school thinks I’m a psychopath.”

“Everyone?”

“Pretty much.”

Liz crossed her legs. “Are you enjoying your classes?”

“No. I took them all last year.”

“Hm. Of course. What else are you finding frustrating about the new school year?”

Esme gave out a little laugh. “Where to begin?”

Liz gestured. “Wherever you’d like.”

Esme was convinced that Liz didn’t believe in hypothetical questions. “Well. Ms. Grell is making me see her once a week even though she knows I’m already talking to you. And Mr. Mitchell won’t let me turn in the stuff I did last year even though I already know everything he’s teaching us. And Frankie won’t leave me alone.”

“Frankie?”

“Yeah. We were almost friends last year,” she reminded Liz.

“I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned Frankie.”

God, was that true? It had been months with Liz. She knew all about Esme’s mom’s suicide attempt and her dad’s cold shoulder. About Miles and Zig. About the motorcycle. She knew about the nightmares and the self harm and all those icky feelings that even with all this effort put into helping her no one seems to be able to get her to shake off. She knows about every moment when Esme took a step back and looked at her actions and said to herself, “I did this? When did this become my life?” Liz knew about all of that. Had she really never mentioned Frankie?

“I must have,” Esme said.

Liz leaned forward. “Tell me about her.”

Esme told Liz the whole story. From that first day at that party in the woods, to that day in the pool with Zig, to the camping trip when she left her out to die. Or at least to get lost.

“And over the summer she wouldn’t stop texting me. But it was all fake, obviously. She’d ask me if I wanted to hang out, or if I’d seen a movie she liked, or if I wanted to go shopping with her.”

“What makes that fake?”

“If she cared about me she’d ask me how I was doing. Or if therapy was good, or if the doctors had figured out what was wrong with me. But she didn’t ask that stuff, so she doesn’t care.”

“Maybe she didn’t ask because she thought it would be invasive. Maybe all the drama that went in between you two last year was too much for her, and now she wants to be friends without all the drama.”

“So she decided she doesn’t care about my mental health?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. You’ve gone through a lot, Esme, and she might just be waiting for you to set the ground rules about what you two are allowed to talk about. Does it feel like you’re starting this relationship over from scratch?”

“Kind of.”

“Then maybe that’s why Frankie is so scared about talking about serious stuff like that with you. Because she doesn't know if you want to talk about it yet.”

“I guess.” It did make sense. But it didn’t explain the kiss.

Liz shifted in her seat. “You said she won’t leave you alone, what do you mean by that?”

“She’s just inconsistent. She texted me a little over the summer, then school started and it was a multiple times a day kind of thing. But then we kissed and now she’s ghosting me again even though she said it was fine.”

“You kissed?”

“Yes. Well, I kissed her. And now she won’t talk about it.”

“Did she want you to kiss her?”

“I thought so. I mean, she invited me up to her room and she got super close to me, but then afterwards she said she’s straight and now we haven’t talked about it.”

“Did you ask her if you could kiss her?”

“No.” The meaning behind Liz’s questions were starting to catch up with Esme’s brain.

Liz turned on a serious expression. “Esme, we’ve talked about your hypersexuality before. Do you think you want to be with Frankie in a sexual way, or do you just want to have someone to be close with?”

Esme picked at her fingernails, a habit she was trying to kick, “I don’t know,” she said.

“That’s alright. But if you want to have any sort of relationship with Frankie at all, then you need to talk to her. You don’t need to tell her everything, but you two need to communicate. Figure out what your friendship will look like before you jump head on into it.”

Esme nodded her head. Liz looked up at the clock on the wall and closed the notebook in her lap. “That’s all the time we have.” She and Esme stood up. “I’ll see you in four days?”

\-----

Shay first noticed Malaika on the first day of school. It was in her history class. Shay sat at the front of the room, and Malika somewhere near the back. It was during attendance, when Mr. Parino asked for one Malaika Halima to note her appearance in his class. He butchered her name as he said it outloud.

“Here,” Maliaka said. “It’s mah-LIY-ka.”

“That’s sort of a mouthful. You go by something else? Malley?”

“No.” Malaika’s voice was flat and humorless.

“Alright,” Mr. Parino said. “Malaika it is.”

He continued on with attendance, and Shay turned around to see her. In the back of the class Malaika sat straight up in her chair. Her scalp was covered in mini bantu knots and she wore a simple tight t-shirt that stretched over a somewhat mannish body. She caught Shay’s eyes and flashed her a quick smile. It was friendly, but the lack of teeth made Shay think it was somewhat forced. 

She didn’t want to make a snap judgement of Malaika, but when she next saw her it was impossible for Shay to not.

It was just a practice run, Coach Armstrong told them, but that didn’t mean much to Shay. She was still going to do her best, and she was still going to win. She always won.

The run ended with a sprint up a hill towards the finish line. It was one of the toughest 5k courses Mr. Armstrong could put her up against, but she was still going to come in first. She always came in first. Shay couldn’t hear much other than the thump of her heartbeat and the smack of her cushioned shoes on the caked earth beneath her feet. Not that there was much she needed to hear other than that, she was in the front by a long shot. She wasn’t even sprinting full out.

Then,

Thump thump thump thump thump.

Shay didn’t have time to chance a glance over her shoulder before the source of the thumping got ahead of her. The sound grew softer, and Malaika Halima was yards in front of her, adding more space between them as she ran.

Shay quickened her pace, desperate to catch up. Thought whirred around her mind, how did she get there so quickly? How did she not hear her? Why wasn’t she going fast enough to beat her? Why was she even here at all?

She pushed herself, until she was sure she couldn’t go any faster. Three yards, one yard, less than-

A whistle blew. Not for Shay, but for Malaika. The two of them slowed, Shay just seconds behind her competition.

“Nice work, ladies,” Armstrong said to the two of them when they reached a stop.

“Who won?” Malaika asked. As if you don’t know, Shay thought. She was just trying to rub it in.

“You,” Armstrong said, pointing at Malaika.

Malaika managed a smile through her pants. She turned to Shay, and she could see that the smile was much more genuine than it had been their first day of history class. It was all teeth, and it never faltered as her breath moved in and out and her chest heaved up and down. “You’re tough to beat,” she said.

Shay nodded at her and tried to smile, but she didn’t think she succeeded.

The two of them went off to get some water, and Shay was happy that they hadn’t put their water bottles anywhere near each other.

She finished her cool-down run before the last girl was done with the mock-marathon. It meant that she was able to catch Armstrong, still standing at the finish line, just as he finished up marking down the times of all of the runners.

“Coach?” she ventured.

“Yes, Shay?”

“Uhm. When did Malaika join the team?”

“Today,” he said. “She’s new, had to get oriented before she was allowed on a team. Means she’ll probably miss the first few meets, but she’ll catch up with you eventually.”

“You mean I’ll have to catch up with her.”

“Not at all. I think you two are pretty evenly matched, you just need to keep your pace up at the end.”

Shay huffed and crossed her arms.

“Think of it as a good thing.” He put his hand on Shay’s shoulder. “ You’ll finally have some competition.”

\-----

“Hey,” Malaika said.

Shay looked over at her. She looked great. Even after a 5k she was still a pretty figure who didn’t have the unfortunate genetics that Shay had of always looking sweaty and disfigured after pushing her body so far. And she was better than her. Shay could have easily put Malaika in her place, but instead she’d let her talent slip and let her win just because she thought that she was destined to get 1st no matter what. That wasn’t the case. Not anymore. She was going to have to push her self harder if she expected to stay the top of the team.

“Hey,” she responded after a too-long stretch of time. 

“You’re in my history class, right? 3rd period Parino?”

“Mm-hm.”

“How’re you doing in it?”

“Fine.”

“He’s a tough grader, right?”

“Mm-hm.”

Malaika sighed. Shay guessed she finally got that Shay had no interest in talking to her. 

“See you ‘round,” she said. And she headed out of the locker room.

\-----

Band was much better after Vivian met Julio. Everyday at the start of band class they would warm up together and chat about whatever they wished. He wasn’t quite a friend yet, but he was more than just the guy sitting next to her. She still wished that Naomi was by her side, but Julio was the best replacement for Last Year Naomi that Vivian could imagine. He always greeted her at the top of class, said goodbye to her at the end, and promised to protect her stuff when she disappeared in the middle of class to use the restroom.

She trusted he did that job well. When she returned from the bathroom one day it wasn’t until the very end of class when everyone was packing up their instruments that she noticed something was off. Or rather, something was missing.

Her backpack.

Usually she put it under her chair, but it wasn’t there. It was hard to miss. The thing was bright pink - or at least it used to be bright pink, she’d had it since sixth grade and it was dulled down and a little worse for the wear - and was covered in funny pins and keychains. She couldn’t find it under her chair, and it wasn’t anywhere else nearby. She got on her hands and knees on the disgusting band room floor, her face close to the ground and scanning. 

It was no where.

Most of the room had cleared out by then, but Julio still stood above her.

“You good?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Vivian mumbled. She climbed to her feet and scratched her head. How was it gone? She didn’t take it with her to the bathroom, and other than that she hadn’t left the room. She knew she had it when she came to band class, because she remembered taking her folder out of it. She hadn’t needed anything else from it, hadn’t touched it in an hour, and yet it was missing? It didn’t make any sense.

“You sure?” Julio asked. There was something in his voice that Vivian didn’t understand. He needed to go to lunch, why was he still here?

“I’m fine. Please leave.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Then he left, and Vivian felt much worse for it. She looked up. She had been so focused on the ground that she hadn’t realized that almost everyone in the room was gone, Julio included. A few of the percussionists were still putting away sticks, and one girl that Vivian thought might be an oboist was chatting with Ms. Rawlings at her desk.

Vivian waited behind her.

When she left she asked Ms. Rawlings; “Have you seen my backpack?”

Ms. Rawlings adjusted some papers on her desk and looked up at Vivian from her chair. When she wasn’t conducting she seemed a little more human and a little less scary, but she was still a threatening figure.

“No, I haven’t.”

“I lost my backpack.”

“Here?”

“Yeah. Can you help me look for it?”

Ms. Rawlings adjusted her glasses. “I suppose. Is it in here?”

“It should be.”

“Okay. Let’s look.”

Vivian and Ms. Rawlings searched the room. The band room was one of the biggest in the school, but there weren’t many places for the backpack to be. I could be on the floor, but it took one sweep of the eyes to see that wasn’t true. It could be in one of the cubbies, and Vivian opened every single on and found that it wasn’t there either. It could be in an instrument case, and Vivian had started opening them only to discover that they mostly contained instruments. She pulled back from the cello case she had been searching. This was getting exhausting, and she was supposed to be meeting Naomi for lunch. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes, but that was stupid of her because it was just a backpack. It didn’t matter. And Naomi probably didn’t care that she was missing lunch with her anyways.

“Is this it?” Ms. Rawlings asked. Vivian turned around to look at her, quickly wiping her tears away. Ms. Rawlings was standing by the trash can, in her hand was a backpack being held by it’s top handle with two fingers. The old pack was the dull bright pink Vivian remembered it being, only now it had a new dark stain developing on the bottom of it.

“Yes!” Vivian called. She sprinted around the chairs to the trashcan and pulled it out of Ms. Rawlings hands. “Thank you.”

“Do you know how it ended up in there?”

That was a good question. In her glee in finding it Vivian hadn't thought that it was all that strange, but it was. One doesn’t just mistake a backpack for trash, and she was sure she hadn’t put it in there. Someone must have done it on purpose. But who? Most of the people in that band didn’t know her name, let alone have some vendetta against her. “Someone must have put it there,” Vivian concluded.

“Do you have any idea who?”

Vivian shook her head.

“Vivian,” Ms. Rawlings said. Vivian hated it when people did that. Everytime someone started a sentence with her name, and said it slowly like Ms. Rawlings just did, it meant they were about to talk down to her. Explain something to her in a way that made it clear they assumed that she would think it was obvious. “If someone put that in there on purpose, that’s bullying. If you have any idea who did it, you need to tell me so I can report it.”

She was speaking in the full sentences that adults speak in when they want to make it clear they think Vivian was an idiot. She spoke like it was rehearsed, like she practiced with the mirror before holding conversations with her.

Vivian just shook her head again. She didn’t want to be in this band class any longer than she needed to. “No one in this class even knows who I am.”

\----

Turns out someone in that class did know who Vivian was. First Chair Flute. She was the one who put Vivian’s backpack in the garbage can.

She hadn’t even considered that she could be the culprit, but 24 hours after the backpack incident she put it together.

Band the next day started with that blonde haired prodigy bully turning around in her chair to look Vivian up and down. Her mouth was small and drawn into a tight smile. Vivian didn’t trust it. A more accurate way to describe her smile would be a smirk or a sneer. She didn’t quite know which was better.

Her blue eyes took Vivian up and down, and then all the way down to the floor, under her chair where her backpack sat.

“Nice backpack,” First Chair Flute said. In that moment Vivian understood it was her.

But there wasn’t much she could do about it.

She could tell on her, of course, but for some dumb reason people didn’t like snitches, so Vivian wasn’t allowed to be one. Even though she knew it was the right thing to do. She could try to get revenge - an eye for an eye and all that - but she didn’t even understand how First Chair Flute had managed it. Had she taken it when she wasn’t looking? Or when she was in the bathroom? How did she sneak past Julio’s protective eye? And how did First Chair Flute get the thing into the trash without anyone noticing? That seemed impossible to her. Or what if people did notice, and just didn’t care? Or what if people knew the backpack was Vivian’s and let First Chair Flute dump it anyways because everyone in the band secretly hated her? She was the worst trombone player in the room, and with the exception of Julio she had no evidence that a single person in the room liked her. But she didn’t think anyone even knew her name, how could they all secretly hate her?

She put her thoughts back on track. She didn’t think she could get First Chair Flute’s backpack into the trash without her noticing, so her revenge would have to come served on a different platter.

The platter came to her at the end of the band class, when a dribble of saliva slipped over her knuckles as she took her trombone apart and put it away.

Her spit valve.

It was a bit too easy. First Chair Flute still had her instrument in her lap, and she leaned on the music stand and scribbled the notes that Ms. Rawlings had given her about her solo. Under her chair, right at Vivian’s feet, was her open flute case. It’s soft black velvet was open to Vivian, and the absorbent nature of the fabric made the revenge all too perfect.

She moved quickly. She held the spit valve out over First Chair Flute’s instrument case and let a week’s worth of saliva dribble out onto the fabric case.

Now came the part of her plan that she hadn’t thought through. She moved fast, trying to pack up her trombone and sheet music as quickly as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough. It was only a second after she was on her feet, backpack on her shoulders, trombone in her hand, that First Chair Flute cried out.

“Ew!” she said. It was drawn out, dramaticized.

Vivian froze in place. Then she realized how guilty that made her look. First Chair Flute must have noticed too, because she took one look at Vivian and spoke again.

“What is wrong with you?”

Most of the room was quiet, Vivian included.

Ms. Rawlings was included as well. She took fast steps down from her conductor’s podium and barged in on Vivian and First Chair Flute’s conflict.

“What is going on?” she asked.

Vivian didn’t have the chance to say a thing. “Vivian dumped her spit on me!” First Chair Flute accused.

“Is that true?” Ms. Rawlings directed her question to Vivian.

Vivian didn’t nod or shake her head or do anything at all. Maybe if she was quiet and still enough, all of this would stop happening. It was a dumb thought to have, and something she was fully aware would never work, but she did it anyways.

“Fine,” Ms. Rawlings continued. “You’ll both be coming with me to my office. Now.”

“But it’s lunch,” First Chair Flute complained.

“And you can go to lunch in five minutes. Let’s do this quickly, please.”

Vivian followed Ms. Rawlings to her office, with First Chair Flute right behind her.

\-----

“Vivian.” Ms. Rawling looked directly at Vivian. “Miabella.” Ms. Rawlings looked directly at First Chair Flute.

For the first time Vivian thought of First Chair Flute as a person. She had a name, a stupid name, but a name. She was a year 10, just like her, and unlike her she had reason to be disappointed about missing lunch. Miabella probably had friends she wanted to be hanging out with, instead of being stuck in the small room connected to the band class room that Ms. Rawlings called an office.

“I want to hear from both of you what happened, and then I will decide punishments.” Ms. Rawlings said.

Miabella took the opportunity to speak first. “I was just trying to pack up, but she filled my flute case with spit, and I had to touch it. Isn’t that a biohazard?”

“No,” Ms. Rawlings said, “But it is gross and-”

“Ms. Rawlings!”

Vivian turned her attention away from her teacher and towards the door behind her.

There was Julio. He looked a little disheveled, as he usually did. His trumpet case swung in his hand and his chest heaved up and down.

Ms. Rawlings did not look nearly as excited to see him as Vivian did.

“Julio, I’m in the middle of something. If you could please-”

“I did it.”

Vivian’s breath caught.

“Excuse me?” Ms. Rawlings said.

“I dumped the spit valve. It wasn’t Vivian.”

“Hm.” Ms. Rawlings looked towards her. “Is this true?”

Vivian slowly nodded her head, unsure why she was agreeing. She saw Miabella fold her arms and cross her legs through the corner of her eye.

Ms. Rawlings sighed. “Very well. Vivian, you’re free to go. Julio, stay.”

Vivian and Julio switched spots. He sat down next to Miabella and Vivian stood in the door frame.

“Close the door,” Ms. Rawlings instructed.

She did, but she remained outside of the office as whatever was going on in there went down.

They were done in less than five minutes.

Miabella left the office first. Her tight face gave a dark look in Vivian’s direction, and then she hurried out of the band room. Julio left the office next, and he stopped right next to her.

“Why’d you-”

“Shh,” He cut her off.

Right. Ms. Rawlings was right there, she would have to ask later.

They left the room together. Once they were outside she tried to ask him again.

“Why’d you do it?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“But didn’t you get in trouble?”

“Not really. Miabella definitely knew I was lying so she just forgave me. Ms. Rawlings said that if I do it again I won’t be allowed to have any solos this year, but I don’t plan on doing it again.” He looked at her with a silly smile on his face. “Or at least I don’t think I’ll need to, right?”

Vivian laughed. “No.” It was a huge mistake, and one that she learned from. 

“And besides, it’s not like I didn’t expect anything from this.”

“Huh?”

“I was hoping as thanks you’d let me join you for lunch?”

\-----

Shay didn’t let Malaika beat her a single time after that first incident. She ran as hard as she could, until she had shin splints and side cramps, but she didn’t let Malaika beat her. She didn’t sneak glances at her in history class anymore, and she didn’t keep an eye out for her during lunch time. She tried to let her name slip from her memory, but every day at practice there she was, just showing off how much she thought of herself. She was so smart in school and so fast on the track, and she wouldn’t let anyone forget it.

Then one day Mr. Parino decided it was time for the class to switch seats. Of course, because the world hated her, she was stuck between the two people in that class she wanted the least of. On her right was Baaz Nahir, Lola’s friend who she stopped respecting after that disaster of a student president election that she was glad he hadn’t won, and on her left was - of course - Malaika Halima.

“Hey,” Malaika said as a greeting.

Shay nodded her response, and then focused on the assignment Mr. Parino had handed out.

“You’re really fast.”

“Thank you.”

“Seriously, I didn’t think I would have any competition at this school. You owned me.”

Shay nodded again.

Malaika cleared her throat. Maybe Shay should’ve been a little warmer, but she didn’t think she could find it within herself. It was mean, but she really just wished that Malaika would stop talking to her.

“So,” Malaika started, “What’re your plans for after high school?”

It was the question that Shay had been answering almost daily since grade 12 started. She was starting to get really sick of it.

“I’m gonna be a runner,” Shay said.

“Really? Makes sense, you’re really good.”

Shay grunted a response, and then wrote a sentence on her worksheet. She leaned back and sighed. She needed to be a little kinder, she realised, Malaika’s just trying to be nice.

“What about you? What’re your plans?”

“Oh, I wanna get into politics.”

Really?

“Not running?” Shay asked.

“Nah, that’s just for fun.”

For fun? Malaika was almost as good a runner as Shay and she was only doing for fun? Then what was the point of constantly showing how much better she was than her?

“And, y’know, to show off,” she elaborated. “I’ve got that extra African muscle in my legs that makes me run faster, I just need everyone to know it.”

Shay looked Maliaka right in her face. She was smiling, but Shay was not.

“That was a joke,” she explained, her smile sliding away.

“I know.”

Malaika sighed and turned her eyes to her own work.

Good thing, Shay thought. She scribbled down her thoughts onto the worksheet. It was all about the French Indian Wars or something. Shay was good in her history classes, but they sure didn’t interest her. She was a few questions away from the end of the assignment when Mr. Parino raised his voice.

“Okay, whatever you didn’t finish is homework. Now, for the slideshow presentations next week I need you guys to partner up. If you can prove you can be responsible, I will let you pick your own partners-”

He was cut off by cheering from the boys in the back of the room. They were all friends with each other, so of course they were happy about picking their own partners. Shay, on the other hand, was not. She turned around in her seat to see if there was anyone in the class she knew. Usually she just put her head down and did her work on her own, but maybe there was an acquaintance from one of her other classes that wouldn’t mind partnering up with her-

“Hey,” a voice from her left said. “Partners?”

Shay looked over towards Malaika. She really had no reason to refuse, and yet her response was still stuck in her throat.

“Look, I really don’t have any friends at this school, I just need someone to do this with me. It’s just a project, afterwards you don’t need to talk to me ever again.”

Wow. Was Shay really being that obvious with her dislike of her?

“Sure,” she said. 

Mr. Parino walked by.

“You two are together?” he asked. Shay nodded her head and took the new assignment from his hands.

“So,” she said once Mr. Parino had walked away. “Where are you friends?”

“At my old school. I just transferred this year.”

“In your last year of school? That sucks.”

“It does, but my dad got a new job so I had to change.”

“Where’d you go before?”

“Northern Tech.”

“Oh. I went up against them a lot when I played volleyball.”

“I know.” Malaika’s voice sounded exactly as Shay expected it to sound. Laced with hate. “That’s, like, the main reason I didn’t want to come here.”

Shay nodded. “Makes sense.”

She lowered her voice and moved in close to Shay. “How do you even survive when there are, like, no black people here?”

“It helps that I’ve always gone here. And I used to have my boyfriend but he graduated.”

“Yeah? Where’s he now?”

“California.”

“Wow. How’s long distance working out?”

“It’s fine.”

It seemed like Malaika could tell through the tone of her voice that she didn’t want to talk anymore about Tiny, so she didn’t push it beyond that. Shay was glad. Lola had been trying to get her to talk about it all week. It was nice to not have that pressure from Malaika.

Weird. Something that she did actually made Shay feel good.

She’d have to remember that for the future.

\-----

Naomi was where Vivian thought she’d be. In the alcove with the friends she decided were much better to be hanging around than she was. She was sitting between a handsome black guy and Lara Chiang, who she shared a math class with. They both seemed nice enough, but to have Naomi be among them made the whole scene feel off.

“Naomi?” Vivian ventured.

Naomi looked up at her as she approached. Her smile split open. “Vivian!”

She was quickly up on her feet and hugging her, which was strange. Naomi had been avoiding Vivian at all costs for the past few weeks, and now she was hugging her infront of these people? She thought she was trying to impress them, and she knew that Naomi found nothing about her impressive.

“Wanna join us for lunch?” She asked.

Vivian looked at who she’d be joining, and it took her less than a moment to decide that no, she had no desire to do that whatsoever.

But she came to Naomi with a goal, and she was going to stick to it.

“Can I talk to you in private?” she asked.

Something in Naomi’s face changed, but Vivian couldn’t pin down what. “Sure,” she agreed.

With how loud the alcove was the two of them didn’t need to move very far away from Naomi’s new friends before being out of earshot. When they were safely away from Lara and the others Vivian posed the question.

“Can we eat lunch together?” 

Naomi gave her a quizzical look. “Yeah. I literally just invited you.”

Not quizzical, Vivian decided. Demeaning.

“No, can you join me? I want you to meet someone.”

That was a half-lie. She did want Naomi to meet Julio, but only because she wanted Julio to think that she had at least one friend. She didn’t really know if she could still call Naomi a friend, but she was her best shot.

“Who?” Naomi asked.

“Julio Castro?”

“Oh. Him. Um. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you friends with him? He’s in my Spanish class, he’s kind of weird.”

Vivian tightened her fists at her sides. “No, he’s not.” She couldn’t believe that Naomi would say that. That was the same kind of stuff that people had been saying about the two of them for as long as they’d existed. Well, Naomi probably didn’t get called weird much anymore, but she used to. And Vivian still did.

“Look, it doesn’t matter. How about you just join me? Lara and Abra are really cool, and they helped me with some fashion stuff. Maybe they can help you too.”

Fashion stuff? There was nothing wrong with Vivian’s fashion stuff. Naomi was just so blinded by how pretty the two of them were that she didn’t realize that those people were turning her into some sort of teenaged monster.

“I sort of just want to hang out with you,” Vivian said. “Julio doesn’t even need to be there. I miss you.”

“And I miss you.” Naomi reached out and squeezed Vivian’s arm. She shook it off. “But I can’t just ditch the guys. They expect me to be there.”

“Why do you care about that now? You sort of ditched me.”

Vivian didn’t regret the words when they first came out of her mouth, but when she watched that fake smile that Naomi had on slip away into something more sinister, she knew that what she said wasn’t going to end with a positive reaction.

“I didn’t ditch you,” Naomi said. There was poison in her voice. “I just wanted new fiends. And, this is going to sound really mean but I promise I’m not trying to be, maybe friends who talk about something other than stupid TV shows and dress like they care about themselves.”

No words came from Vivian’s mouth. She let her head slump and her eyes fall to the blurry floor. No. The floor wasn’t blurry, it was just the tears making it seem that way.

“Hey, hey. Don’t cry. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it. I’m just looking out for you. I really think you’d have more friends if you were a little more like me.”

“You mean like Lara and Abra,” Vivian managed to choke out.

“No, like me. Seriously, we can hang out soon. It can be just us, just like you said.”

Then, through tears, “I don’t think I want to hang out with you anymore.”

Naomi’s face turned truly neutral.

“I’m sorry,” Vivian said, but she really didn’t know why she was apologizing. She didn’t think she’d said anything untruthful. Her hot face was growing wet, and she couldn’t stand to be there when Naomi undoubtable said ‘don’t cry’ again, so she bolted.

Naomi was behind her, and for the first time ever Vivian was glad for it. Then she felt guilty. Then she felt really, really sad.

The bathroom was a safe space, and when she got there she threw open the door of a stall and rushed in. Locked the door. Leaned against it. Cried.

The world was so big, and so awful, and she was just a stupid high school girl with stupid problems crying in the stalled bathroom of an insignificant school. It was embarrassing, that something this dumb was so big. It was just one other girl, it was just a friendship, it was just high school. She was supposed to meet all her real friends at University anyways. That’s what her mom always told her. All this was a trial for her real life, and that was just two years away. Until then she would cry in as many bathroom stalls as she wanted, and she wouldn’t need Naomi, and she would calm herself down in three, two, one.

With one final shuddering breath she stopped her tears. Over as quickly as it started. Suppressed. She wiped her face and stepped out of the bathroom. 

In the mirror she saw a girl who obviously looked like she had just been crying, but it didn’t matter. She still had a cute boy to meet for lunch. She still had a life outside of Naomi. She would get through this day.

She left the bathroom. Thoughts of Naomi shoved down deep, and excited thoughts of Julio bubbling to the top.

\-----

Shay didn’t realize she’d become friends with Malaika until she looked up and saw that she was side by side with her on every run they went on. Sometimes they wouldn’t even come in first. The longer they took on the run meant the longer they had to talk before Armstrong sent them off on a different activity or individual exercises. 

On these runs Shay realized one major thing. Malaika was way, way cooler than her. She was getting good grades in all her classes - except Mandarin, because she couldn’t learn new languages no matter how hard she tried - she was the second fastest runner on the cross country team, she babysat on weekends for a very rich family, she was fully convinced she was going to be prime minister one day, and on weekends she let loose because she knew that once she was at university her schedule wouldn’t allow time for any partying.

She was basically everything Shay wished she was. She was easy going, funny, and all her friends from Northern Tech seemed really, really cool.

“Oh, they are,” Malaika said when Shay told her that. They were on a run, right behind a group of girls that Shay knew she was faster then. But with Malaika by her side she didn’t mind. “You should meet them, I bet they’d really like you.”

“You think?”

“Um, duh. I need to introduce you to Ivette, actually. You two are, like, basically the same person.”

Shay hummed a response, then coughed. “Hey, I think I’m gonna slow down. Go up ahead.”

“What? I’m sorry, the Great Shaylynn Powers did not just say she was going to slow down.”

Shay was already dropping her pace. Something was crawling up inside her. It was pain, like period cramps, but much worse. Each step brought a little more pain, soon she was walking, watching as the slowest girls on the team passed her with nothing more than a concerned glance.

“You good?” Malaika reached her arm out to Shay as the two of them came to a complete stop. Shay rested her hands on her knees and took deep breaths. The pain from her steps stopped, but just standing and breathing was making it hurt. She wasn’t on her period, and she hadn’t been running that hard or that fast. There was no reason for her to be cramping like that.

Shay waved her off. “I’m fine. Go, run.”

“No.”

Malaika had something in her voice that let Shay know that there was no use arguing with her. It was probably the future politician jumping out of her.

“Seriously, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t-” she huffed a painful breath, “I don’t know.” Shay breathed deep again, glad that Malaika was there with her. “I think I’m going to walk,” she said.

When she started walking, Malaika was right by her side the whole way to the finish line.

\-----

It took a few days before Esme found a chance to talk to Frankie alone. She’d stopped returning texts, and it turned out she, Shay, and Lola were all attached at the hip. It was only by chance that Esme stumbled into Frankie one lunch while she was alone and hunched over her history homework.

Esme was almost nervous, but she quickly decided to not be. Frankie was just another person. As she approached she could see Wikipedia open on her phone as she drafted up a research paper. That was enough to convince Esme that Frankie wasn’t the sort of person she needed to be nervous around.

When she was close enough she tapped her on the shoulder. Frankie looked up. Her mouth was a little open, her eyes unfocused.

“Can I sit?” Esme asked.

Her words seemed to shake Frankie out of it. “Absolutely,” she said, so Esme sat.

They were quiet for just a moment, then Frankie spoke, “I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you. Well, I haven’t been trying to ignore you, I just haven’t been able to think about what to say to you. I know I said that that kiss didn’t mean anything and that we should just forget it, but I think I need to be more honest with you. That kiss did mean something, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Esme shifted her eyebrows around. That wasn’t what she’d expected Frankie to say. “The kiss meant something?”

“Yeah. Or, to you it did. It meant that you like me, but I’m straight and if we’re going to be friends then we need to deal with that.”

Oh.

“Hey, no. I do like you, just not like that.”

“Then why’d you…”

Esme took a deep breath. She said she was going to do this, which meant she was going to do this. “It was an impulsive moment of hypersexuality,” she said, “It was a symptom of my BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder, which is a thing I have.”

“Um. Okay.”

“I want to be friends with you, Frankie. But if we’re going to be friends then we need to be honest with each other, just like you said. I have BPD and PTSD and those things have made me act in unacceptable ways in the past. I’m working to be better, but I’m not perfect. I’d like a friend like you to help me be better. If you’ll have me.”

“Oh, Esme.” Frankie shifted her school work out of her lap and pulled Esme in for a hug. “Of course I’ll have you.”

“Yeah?” Esme asked, voice breaking.

Frankie took her shoulders in her hands and held her so their faces were aligned. “Of course.”

Esme smiled a shaky smile. Her eyes were burning with tears, she even let a couple fall down the front of her face. They weren’t tears of mania or fear or depression or all the others things she’d been working so hard on overcoming. These were tears of joy, and she didn’t want them to ever stop falling.

\-----

Malaika’s face was overly concerned when Shay walked into class the day after the cramping. Before she could even sit down next to her Malaika already was asking her questions. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure? It seemed kind of serious.”

“I’m fine. I took tylenol last night and I felt fine this morning. I think it was just a running cramp.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

A new voice spoke up. “Are you sure you’re sure?”

The source of the new voice was the person sitting to the right of Shay. Baaz Nahir. He was dressed up in a blue button up with his hair combed in a way that made him look five and fifty at the same time. Shay would rather he butt out of her private conversation, but she didn’t think she could get out of this one without looking like a huge jerk in front of Malaika, which was something she was avoiding. She’d been enough of a jerk to her in the beginning, she needed to let her know that that wasn’t her anymore.

“I’m sure, Baaz,” Shay said.

“You know,” he started, “the body is connected to almost everything in your mind. Cramping could be a sign of mental stress.”

“Really?” Malaika asked.

Unbelievable, Shay thought. Was she really going to indulge him? He obviously just wanted to know some new gossip or whatever.

“Yes,” he continued. He directed his next question to Shay. “Have you experienced any stressful situations lately?”

Shay sighed. “No,” she said. 

“Haven’t you, though?” Malaika said.

Well, yes, Shay thought. But she wasn’t about to indulge her private life with this guy she barely knew and didn’t like.

“I mean, I’ve got school stuff and University applications and scholarships. But none of that is any different from last year, so it can’t be any of that.”

“What about Tiny?” Malaika asked.

“I guess I’m a little stressed about Tiny being surrounded by a bunch of college girls, but he would never do anything to hurt me, right?”

“Of course, your boyfriend.” Baaz sounded like he had already found an answer to Shay’s predicament. “Well, I hope you know that your stress-caused cramps will ease soon.”

“How do you know?” Malaika asked.

“You’re going to have much less stress very soon. You’re about to be Turkey Dumped.”

“Turkey dumped?”

Baaz nodded. “Mm-hmm. You know, the older one in the relationship thinks that he can keep it up with the girlfriend when he’s in college, but then he meets some hot twenty something from California and suddenly he’s not so sure about the high schooler he’s clinging to. So he comes back for thanksgiving and drops her. The Turkey Dump. Looks like you’re only a week away from the end of those cramps.” He thought for a moment. “Wait, California. Good for you, American Thanksgiving means you have till November.”

Shay scrunched up her face, and from the corner of her eye she could see Malaika preparing a strong counter argument against Baaz.

Mr. Parino spoke before Baaz could be taken down. “Alright, class. Let’s quiet down, you’re on my time now.”

Shay slumped back in her chair and tried to keep what Baaz had said from infecting her mind.

\-----

When the school bell rang to signal the end of the period Shay grabbed her bag and rushed out of that room as quickly as she could, Malaika stayed on her heels.

“Shay, wait.” She grabbed Shay’s upper arm. She was strong, Shay had no choice but to stop for her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m totally fine. My boyfriend’s going to dump me next month. But I’m fine.”

“You don’t actually believe what that guy said? He’s an idiot, and he doesn’t know what it’s like with you and Tiny. He just said that to make you feel bad.”

“Yeah, well, it worked.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. But you need to be logical. You and Tiny are in a good place, right?”

“Maybe? No, not really. We only talk on the phone like once a week. And he probably does have pretty California girls he’d rather be with than me. I wouldn’t know, why would he tell me something like that? Baaz is right. He’s totally planning on dumping me.”

“No. Baaz is not right. Don’t say that. Here.” Malaika took Shay’s hands in her own. “Take a deep breath.” Shay did so. “You and Tiny’s relationship doesn’t affect Baaz at all, and you shouldn’t let what Baaz has to say about it affect you.”

Shay nodded.

“And even if Tiny is going to break up with you, you still are surrounded with people who love you. People like me, like Lola and Frankie. Your parents. Tiny is one person who loves you, but he isn’t the only one, and he isn’t the most important one.”

“I don’t know if what you’re saying is making me feel better,” Shay said.

“Well your breathing is a little more normal, so I think I’ve done my job.”

“And what is that?”

“Being your friend, dummy.”

Shay smiled. Malaika did too. Then Malaika reached out and put her arm around Shay’s waist, and started walking down the hallway. The world was scary, what Baaz said was scary, but Shay was feeling a little better. With Malaika at her side she always felt a little better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More than two months later and I've returned with chapter 2! I have all 10 chapters planned out, I just need to keep the motivation up to write them. You can expect chapter 3 hopefully sometime before the final spring snows melt to reveal the flower filled meadows.
> 
> Thank you for reading and for your patience!


	3. Episode 3: What Do You Mean?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vijay seeks out a new experience, Baaz mediates All Inclusive Drama, and Vivian goes on her first date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: This update contains a non-graphic rape scene.

Vivian’s school year became about one million times better after she’d replaced Naomi with Julio. That was unfair to say. Naomi had replaced her with Lara, Abra, and those boys whose names she hadn’t bothered to learn. She had made friends with Julio right when she ended her friendship with Naomi. It was more of a coincidence than a replacement.

At lunch they found themselves in the position they usually found themselves in after that fateful day in band class. They sat across from each other at the end of a rectangular table in the lunchroom. Julio sat with his school lunch tray in front of him and talked animatedly about the symbolic analysis essay he’d written for fun about a fantasy novel Vivian had never heard of. Vivian couldn’t imagine writing an essay for fun, but she could imagine that it was the sort of thing Julio enjoys doing. She wasn’t really listening to him, instead she was preparing her own speech about a brand new manga she’d started reading last night. The best part of her friendship with Julio was that she would let him talk about whatever he wanted knowing that he would do the same thing for her. With Naomi she had to constantly tread lightly around conversations, because if she ever messed up Naomi was sure to tell her she had been talking for too long or too loud, or about something no one cares about, or Naomi had just gotten bored and wanted to start talking about herself instead.

No. Stop. This moment isn’t about Naomi. Naomi isn’t her friend anymore. She doesn’t need to think about her, she shouldn’t think about her. There’s no one in the world other than Vivian and Julio. Beautiful Julio. 

She doesn’t exactly remember when she developed a crush on him. One day she just looked up and realized. It was impossible for her to not like him, he was so perfect. Unfortunately for her, he was clearly not interested. Besides being clearly out of her league - with his first chair position in band and straight A’s and looks that put every A-lister in Hollywood to shame, - he also hadn’t shown one lick of interest in her in a way that wasn’t platonic. He’d talk to her like a best friend would, he stuck by her side like a brother would, and sometimes in band class it felt more like they were supportive colleagues than friends. She thought he was doing it on purpose. She was an open book, it was impossible that he hadn’t noticed her crush.

She watched as he reached the thrilling conclusion of the speech she hadn’t listened to. “Anyways, that’s the basic gist of it. I could share it with you if you want. Um. What have you been doing?”

The words came to her mind and out of her mouth before she could stop them. She didn’t know if she wanted to stop them.

“Do you want to go on a date?”

He froze. “Like, in general?”

“No. Like. With me?”

“Oh. Um.” He sputtered about his words. “I guess so. Err. I mean. Yes. Yes, I would like to.”

“Really?”

“Oh, my God. Yeah. Yes. Holy crap.” He put his head in his hands. His face was changing hues and his face was confusedly contorting in every way. Vivian was afraid that she had done something very wrong.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. Yes. Um. I just didn’t expect you to ask me out.”

She hadn’t really expected to ask him out either. She was still reeling in the fact that he hadn’t rejected her. 

“Do you… like me?”

Now it was Vivians’ chance to stutter. “Um. Yes. I thought I was being obvious? I’m not great at hiding feelings.”

“You thought you were being obvious? Dude, I thought I was being obvious. And you were just rejecting me softly.”

“Wait. You like me?”

“Um. Duh. Why do you think I eat lunch with you?”

“But you like like me? Like romantically?”

“I do.”

“Wow.”

They both sat in silence. Two asteroids that had been circling each other finally colliding, and neither knowing what to do about it.

Julio cleared his throat. “You’re serious about asking me out?”

“Um. Yes.”

“Okay. Then yes, I accept.”

“Really?”

Julio reached out to grab Vivian’s hands. He’d never done it before, and it felt almost orgasmic.

“Vivian Luna. There is nothing else in the whole world I want more than to go on a date with you.”

“Cool,” she said, quite stupidly. She recovered. “How about The Dot? After school?”

“I’ll be there.”

\-----

QSA meetings end at 4:30, and Vijay couldn’t have been happier when the clock finally clicked its final minute.

“Okay,” he said, standing up from his presidential chair. “That’s the end of the meeting. I’ll see you all next week.”

The members of the QSA were a slow bunch to leave the classroom, which annoyed Vijay to no end because he was the one who had to wait until everyone was gone before he locked the door. 

He pulled out his phone and started texting his mom, asking her when she was going to be home. He wanted to get home and play the new video game he got last week, but if Priya Maraj was home when he got there she wouldn’t stand for it, not with all the homework he’d been assigned in his classes and the projects he has to do as QSA president, school vice president, and a member of All Inclusive. With all the things he’d dedicated himself to this year he’d hardly made it past the tutorial of the game.

“Great meeting today, prez.” Vijay looked up from his phone. In front of him stood Kat, the quiet grade 10 QSA vice president.

“Thanks,” he said.

She ripped a sheet of paper from the journal she was carrying. “Meeting minutes,” she explained.

Vijay took the paper from her. In her sloppy handwriting there was documentation of everyone who had been in attendance, and an unnecessarily in depth summary of what they’d talked about. She was crazy dedicated to this club, and it showed in everything she did for it. She’d probably make a better president than Vijay did. “Thanks.”

“Also, I won’t be here next week. Doctors appointment.”

“Yeah? What for??”

“Oh, we’re finally getting the ball rolling on estrogen.”

“Oh, my God! Kat, that’s amazing!”

“Thank you.” She smiled and looked down at her feet.

“Well, it’s totally fine you’re missing. I’ll do the minutes and fill you in in two weeks?”

“Sounds good.” Kat got a little closer to Vijay and dropped her voice into a much softer tone. “Quick question; when did those two start dating?” She pointed her eyebrows in the direction of two niner boys. They were wrapped in eachothers arms, the taller one actively placing kisses on the shorter ones forehead. Vijay was embarrassed to say that he didn’t know their names. But it had been impossible to not notice them when they spent the whole meeting in similar compromising positions.

He shrugged at Kat. The dating drama in the QSA was constant and, since it never involved Vijay, quite boring. “This week, I guess.”

Kat gave a sly smile. “Odds they’re still together next meeting.”

Vijay snorted. “Don’t be mean,” he scolded. Then he got silly again. “Very low, I’m sure.”

Kat nodded her agreement, said her goodbyes, and left.

Vijay had to wait a few more minutes until everyone else was out of the room. They didn’t try to talk to him, but he purposefully made it so it looked like he was busy by continuing to text his mom. He really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone in QSA other than Kat, and she’d just left him alone. Which he didn’t mind. It was embarrassing to admit, but the reason he wanted to be alone was because of those two lovebird niners. He never had anything like that when he was in grade nine. And now he was in his final year of high school and still nothing like that had happened. He went on two dates with Tristan Mulligan and gave a sad handjob on his couch, but other than that he had literally no romantic or sexual experience. Imagine that, the president of the Queer Straight Alliance had the least experience actually being queer of anyone in the club.

But he could change that if he wanted. And he knew exactly how to do it.

\-----

The awkwardness started the moment Julio and Vivian travelled the short distance to The Dot. They moved silently, walking in synch. They had never spent time together outside of school before, and their first attempt of venturing into that territory was not going well.When they got there they found a table in the back of the cafe that was reasonably secluded. Vivian sat on the comfy booth that lined the back wall after Julio offered to take the hard metal chair for himself. What a gentleman. 

After their brief interactions about the seating arrangements, the two of them fell silent.

They stayed like that for nearly fifteen minutes. Julio slowly sipping away at his hot chocolate and Vivian picking at her blueberry scone.

When they finally did talk, it wasn’t prompted by each other.

An all too familiar figure approached their table. Vivian looked up to see Naomi, flanked by Abra, Lara, and the two boys whose names she hadn’t bothered to learn.

“Hey, girl,” Naomi said. Vivian had never heard Naomi call anyone ‘girl,’ with maybe the exception of her dog. It threw her off so much she forgot to respond.

Julio didn’t, though. “Hi.” He reached out his hand. “I’m Julio. I don't think we’ve met.”

She tilted her head at him and smiled. You couldn’t tell by the way it looked, but Vivian knew it was fake. She’d been there when Naomi had said those mean things about Julio the week previous. Naomi took his hand and shook it gently. “Naomi. I’m Vivian’s friend.”

Vivian wanted to tell her ‘not really,’ but she couldn’t find the courage.

“I’m also Vivian’s friend,” Julio said, happy to have something in common with Naomi.

“You sure?” she asked. Fear grabbed Vivian, she wasn’t sure what awful thing Naomi was about to say next. “Are you sure you’re not her-” she dropped her voice to a whisper, “-boyfriend?”

As if it was such a salacious thing to say. Vivian could remember countless conversations between her and Naomi where they created grand fantasizes about having a man to themselves.

“Um.” Julio looked to Vivian for prompting. “We’re working on it.”

“No,” Vivian said. “We’re not dating.”

“Oh, my God. You’re lying! I can tell when you're lying. Wow. I can’t believe that you got a boyfriend before me. Good job.” She patted Vivian on her shoulder, which she shook off quickly. “Geez, don’t be so touchy.”

“I want you to leave now,” Vivian said, trying to keep her voice steady. She was pretty sure that if Naomi stuck around for even a minute longer she would start crying, and she couldn’t stand for that. Especially not in front of Julio, on their first date. Especially not in front of Naomi, then she’d know that she won their separation. Especially not in front of Naomi’s new friends, she didn’t want their first impression of her to be the weird girl who cried in a coffee shop after having a thirty second conversation. She wasn’t going to cry.

“Right, of course. Sorry for interrupting your date. You two are so cute together. I wish you nothing but happiness.”

With that she turned away and led her posse out of The Dot. At the back of the group Lara turned around and mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ in their direction. It was the last thing Vivian saw before her vision turned to a blur.

Julio had his hands on her shoulders in an instant. She blinked hard and forced the tears to stop. They did, but only after a few had already rolled down her cheeks. God, she was embarrassing. If she couldn’t get through a single day without crying, then why did she deserve anyone as good as Julio to stay by her side and wipe away her tears?

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

She scrubbed at her eyes, hard, spreading the wet tears across her face to erase them. “Can we leave?” she asked.

“Of course.”

She stood up and stared at the wall across from her as Julio gathered their backpacks. She muttered a ‘thank you’ when he handed hers over, and she snuggled in close to him as he placed a comforting arm around her. They left The Dot together.

\-----

Baaz, being the most punctual and dedicated member of the group, was set up before any other member of All Inclusive arrived. He was sitting at what he decided was the head of the table, despite it being a perfect circle. Its roundness was symbolic for every group member having equal say, but his superior leadership skills were not symbolic. They were fact. It was a fact unknown to the school at large, as seen when they elected Yael and Vijay as president and VP instead of him. It was true that he had come on strong at the debate, but it was only the natural first move of a smart politician. But of course they preferred Yael because they were white and Vijay because he was popular. Nevermind the fact that the only reason he was popular was because of the song covers that Baaz personally uploaded to their channel. Alas, the people of Degrassi had spoken, and they wanted Vijay as VP. Baaz was too frequently behind the scenes to be appreciated.

He was also too frequently the only one who cared about timeliness. He checked his smart watch. It was two minutes after the meeting was supposed to start, and only then did Lola and Vijay bother to show up. He didn’t give them a greeting. If they were going to waste his time then they didn’t deserve it.

They were talking, loudly, as they frequently did. He checked his watch again. Four minutes after start time Yael and Hunter arrive. Not together, but close enough that they were in the Awkward Place. 

The Awkward Place, as Baaz had dubbed it, was what happened when the space between Yael and Hunter was small enough that it created long silences and inevitable fights. It was impossible to hold an All Inclusive meeting with both of them there without entering the Awkward Place.

He wished that time would kill the Awkward Place, but it was a month into the school year and it hadn’t happened yet, so he doubted it ever would. When every member was seated Baaz cleared his throat and began the meeting despite knowing the long silences and inevitable fights that lay ahead.

“Alright. Glad to see everyone could make it. Are we ready to begin?” No one replied. “Good. This’ll be a quick one, I just need to make sure we’re all on the same page. Lola and Vijay,” He stared them down, “you know you’re filming next Wednesday?” Lola gave him an unenthusiastic thumbs up, and Vijay nodded as well. “Good. Hunter, you’re supposed to have the first draft of the script about that new comic ready, is it?”

Hunter unfolded his arms and mumbled, “Working on it.”

Typical Hunter. Never finished. He’d just have to roll with it. “Just send over what you’re done so I can start edits.”

Yael piped up. “But you’re already editing my script.”

“Yes. That’s actually the next topic of conversation. If you pull up the doc you can see the notes I’ve written for it. I think we can go over it now.”

“I meant, I can edit Hunter’s if you’re already too busy.”

Hunter scoffed. “Yeah, no.”

Baaz glanced Hunter’s way. He had gone back to slouching, and by the look on his face he knew he was serious about not letting Yael near his work. That was unproductive, and in this professional environment, it was unacceptable.

But this was Hunter and Yael he was talking about. If he was going to put himself in the middle of the Awkward Place, then he would have to tread lightly. “If Yael’s offering their help that means I can focus my energy somewhere else. That’s a good thing.”

Hunter shook his head. “Nope. I’m not letting her touch it.”

Baaz heard Lola mutter ‘them’ under her breath, but with the months and months of misgendering that Hunter had been doing, they’d all given up on openly correcting him. It never met any results.

He looked over to Yael to make sure they weren’t crumbling at the misgendering. They weren’t. Instead, they looked pissed. “It’s a comic book, Hunter. It isn’t personal.”

“It’s my writing. You’re just looking for the chance to rip it apart. Just like you ripped apart everything else.”

“No, I just want this channel to actually make good content, something you refused to do anymore.”

“I make good content.” Hunter leaned forward and sneered at Yael.

“Used to. Now you refuse to cooperate, you won’t accept criticism, you skip out of meetings-”

“Oh, screw this,” Hunter spat. He stood up. “I get that you all want to change it all and start singing songs about how ‘we’re all different, but that’s okay’ but that isn’t why I’m here. I’m here to talk about comics, but for some reason This One,” he pointed at Yael, “Won’t let me so much as exist in the same room as her. I’m out.”

With that, he pushed his chair to the ground, grabbed his backpack, and flew out of the door, slamming it behind him. The drama of it had lost its punch, since it was far from the first time he’d done that this school year.

Baaz turned to Yael. “I can just send you the script anyways. He doesn’t actually care who edits it.”

They let out a quick breath through their nose. “Can I call a meeting?” they asked.

“We’re in a meeting.”

“Nope. New meeting. Just us four.”

Baaz was unsure about this, but Yael seemed dedicated. It must be important. “Sure.” He pointed to Vijay. “Vijay, start new meeting minutes.”

Yael didn’t wait for Vijay to be ready with a new piece of paper before announcing their purpose. “We need to fire Hunter.”

For a few seconds it was silent.

Yael continued. “He’s a detriment to this club. He refuses to do the tasks assigned to him, he doesn’t put in nearly as much effort as the rest of us do, and he’s been harassing me all year.” 

Baaz chewed at his lips. Everything they said was true, but it still gnawed at him. 

“Do we need to discuss it further or can we just put it to a vote?” Yael asked the room.

“Wait,” Baaz said. “I have a counter argument.”

Yael gestured to him. “The floor is yours.”

He spent a moment searching for an eloquent way to say this. “Hunter is our friend. Or, most of our friends. And I know we try to make All Inclusive professional and legitimate, but the reason we founded it - the reason he founded it - was because we like each other and we wanted to spend time together. If we fire Hunter we’ll be ending our friendship with him, no matter what way we try to spin it. And I know that you’ve had issues with him, but he’s a good person at his core. And I don’t want to lose him.”

Yael nodded along, and jumped in with a fully prepared counter when he was done. “He’s your friend. Hunter and I haven’t shared a single good word since prom. His presence in this club turns this from a place I love to a place I don’t feel safe. If we don’t fire him, then I’m going to have to quit. For my safety.”

The room was quiet once again.

“Have we all said our peace?” they asked.

Slowly, Baaz and the others nodded.

“Then let’s put it to a vote. All in favor of firing Hunter?”

It was unanimous.

\-----

After the vote was cast the room’s mood was killed immediately. You can’t just decide you’re going to end a relationship with a guy who you’ve been best friends with for four years through bureaucratic measures and then move on swiftly with your day. They cast the vote, Yael left right after, Lola got comfy on a pink bean bag chair in the corner, and Baaz slowly got to packing up his stuff and dismissing himself. Vijay waited until he was gone before approaching Lola to share the life update he’s been dying to dump on someone since he came to the decision at that last QSA meeting.

He made his way across the room to where Lola was comfortably scribbling in her notebook and bobbing her head along to music streaming through her earbuds. Phone in hand, he flopped down on the bean bag chair next to her.

She startled, regained herself, and pulled out her music.

“What’s up?” she asked.

Vijay turned on and unlocked his phone quickly, then showed her the black and orange screen it opened to.

“Is this…?”

“Yep. Grindr.”

“Oh. Okay.” She didn’t show much emotion through her words.

“Okay… what?”

“Why are you showing this to me?”

“Because I’m meeting up with a guy this weekend and I need some advice.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

He sighed. “You’re my only friend who’s had sex before. I need some tips or whatever.”

Lola let out a little laugh. “You want me to give you gay sex tips?”

“No, just any sex tips.” Vijay was being serious. This was an important thing for him. Why was she being so weird about it?

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Show me the guy.”

He pulled up the guy’s profile and showed it to her.

“Ay, Dios,” she said, taking the phone away from him. “He’s, like, 50.”

“He’s 37, and he thinks I’m 22 so it’s fine.” Vijay snatched the phone back. He didn’t need her reading through the conversation they’d had, or the pictures Eric sent him.

“No, it’s not fine. You don’t look 22. You don’t look 18. You aren’t 18.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

Lola sat up straighter and looked Vijay right in his eyes. “Vijay, are you actually going to meet up with this guy?”

“I mean, yeah.” He regretted bringing this up with her more every second. He thought she would be chill about it. Apparently not.

“That’s really dangerous. He could be a catfish. Or a murderer. Or he could go to jail for statutory rape. You shouldn’t do this.”

“Come on, I thought you were going to be cool about this.”

“No. I don’t want my friend meeting up with a random 37 year old he met on Grindr. That’s messed up.”

He sighed. This is what he gets for asking for sex advice from a straight girl. Even a relatively cool straight girl like Lola. “You don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get?”

“It’s different when you’re gay. You have a boyfriend, and you’ve been with guys before. It’s not that easy for me. My dating pool is microscopic. If I want to do this before I’m out of high school then I really don’t have another option.”

“Why do you need to do it before you’re out of high school? Just wait.”

“You didn’t ‘just wait,’” he snapped. 

Lola’s face tightened. She snapped her notebook closed and stood up. 

“I didn’t mean it like that…” Vijay trailed off. He didn’t quite know what he meant.

“No, you’re right. I didn’t wait. I had sex with a guy my age who I already knew and trusted. Just because it’s harder for you doesn’t mean you have to put yourself in a dangerous situation to make up for it.”

“It isn’t dangerous. He’s verified.”

“Just-” Lola held a hand up. Vijay could see her searching for words that wouldn’t put him over the edge again. “There’s no way I’m gonna talk you out of this?”

“I already made the plans.”

She sighed. “Then promise me you’ll try to be safe. And you’ll tell me if anything goes wrong.”

Vijay sighed and stood up. He held out a pinky towards her. “I promise I won’t be sexually assaulted or otherwise harmed,” he said.

Lola frowned. “You can’t promise that.”

Vijay sighed again. “Fine. I promise that if that happens then I will tell you.”

Lola almost smiled, then hooked her pinky finger with his. “Thank you. I still don’t think you should do this, but thank you.”

“Thanks for the support,” Vijay said. They hugged each other, then left together.

\-----

Vivian was pretty sure she had invented the worst first date possible yesterday afternoon, and now she had to face the subject of her affections in band class. After publicly crying in his arms she wasn’t quite sure if she was going to make it through the period. He sat in his regular chair running through scales on his trumpet. She found her way to her seat. 

Julio took the trumpet away from his lips and asked her, “Are you feeling better?”

She nodded, but she didn’t look at him as she started to unpack her trombone.

“Look. That was really weird for us yesterday, you know?”

She nodded again. She did know. She’d hyped up that date so much, so of course it had all tumbled apart before her eyes when it actually happened. And now he was going to break off all romantic endeavors with her, and maybe all platonic ones too.

“Well, I think it’s because we’re such good friends.” Yep. That checks out. He’s friend-zoning her. “And hanging out like that, that just isn’t our style.”

“Okay,” she squeaked.

“Which is why I don’t think we should go on any more dates.” Again, she saw all of this coming. She just wished he’d reject her a little quicker. “We can just hang out like we used to, but instead of Friendship Hangouts they’ll be Boyfriend-Girlfriend Hangouts.”

Wait. What?

She looked at him. She couldn’t read his expression. Hopeful? Scared? She couldn’t do much other than guess. Or ask him what he meant directly. “You still want to be my boyfriend?”

“Um. Was that not obvious?”

“I cried on our date.”

“Because it was weird we were on a date. We don’t need to do all the romantic stuff, we can just be together with no obligations.”

“Is this because of Naomi?”

“No. Public spaces just make me nervous.”

She perked up. “Public spaces make me nervous!”

“That’s why we’re so perfect for each other.”

They laughed, and smiled, and held eye contact. Julio leaned in an inch. 

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

Vivian closed the gap between their lips before he’d even finished the question.

Neither of them knew it, but as the kiss happened they both had the very same thought. This is my first kiss. It finally happened.

“Oh, my God. What are you guys doing?”

They broke apart to see Miabella - the girl who stole Vivian’s backpack - turned around in her seat and giving them a nasty look.

Blushing, they settled into their seats and Miabella turned back around. Once she butted out of their business, they shared another look and another big smile.

\-----

Baaz, being the most punctual and dedicated member of the group, arrived late to an All Inclusive meeting for the first time ever only because it was on purpose. Instead of heading to the classroom where they met as quickly as possible like he usually does, he instead intercepted Hunter as he left his final period. His satchel dragged down his shoulder and his headphones shut him off from the rest of the world. Baaz grabbed his arm, and Hunter let the headphones drop. He gave him a confused look.

“I need to tell you something about this meeting. Just so it doesn’t surprise you when it happens.”

\-----

“What the hell, you guys?” Hunter shouted as he burst into the room. Baaz ran after him, but he couldn’t stop him. Hunter was faster and more determined. “You can’t fire me. I am this club.”

Vijay, Lola, and Yael pulled away from their worlds and placed themselves in Hunter’s. Lola ventured; “Who told you we’re firing you?”

“Baaz did. Because he’s my friend.”

Vijay looked to Baaz. “Why would you do that?”

Baaz couldn’t even shrug off some half-formed answer. He told Hunter about the vote early to avoid a violent reaction, but apparently he’d just caused a greater one.

“He did it because he cares about me,” Hunter answered for him. “Unlike the rest of you.”

“We do care about you,” Vijay said, although with all the recent drama it was hard to tell who ‘we’ was anymore.

Hunter pointed a finger at Yael. “You don’t. You put everyone up to this, didn’t you? You’re still mad about our breakup so you turned everyone against me.”

Yael adjusted their glasses. “We had a discussion with arguments for both sides, and we held a vote. It was decided the same way we make all decisions.”

“You held a vote? About me?”

“It was unanimous.”

Hunter took his time making violent eye contact with everyone in the room, holding it the longest with Yael.

“This is all such crap. I made this club. I’m the only reason we exist. If you kick me out, you kill all of us.”

Yael rolled their eyes. “I think we can survive without you. I’ve managed.”

Hunter was red in the face, his hands were tight balls, and Baaz could see him vibrating with rage. He was plumb out of words to say, which meant it was only moments before he resorted to something else. Something worse than just yelling.

The moment Baaz thought that, it happened. He watched his friend grab a keyboard off one of the computers that sat on the desks on one side of the room. He pulled it hard, its cable knocking over the monitor before unplugging. Hunter tossed the thing hard across the room, and it exploded into tens of white plastic keys as it hit the wall. Lola yelped, Vijay protected his face, Baaz flinched. Yael reacted like they weren’t even in the same room as the broken keyboard. They stood strong, unflinching, then looked to Hunter.

“Jesus Christ, Hunter. What the hell is wrong with you?”

He took a vicious step towards them. “You can’t fire me. I quit.”

He stormed out, smacking into Baaz’s shoulder as he passed. It was hard enough that he knew it wasn’t an accident. The door slammed shut behind him. He gazed into the room. Vijay was frozen with his mouth open in shock. Lola was rubbing her temples. Yael had crossed the room and was picking the keys up off the floor one by one. Forever the one picking up Hunter’s messes, they were.

It didn’t feel like anyone would be able to hold a meeting after that mess. Baaz left without saying a word. There was someone he needed to talk to.

\-----

Baaz found Hunter quickly, he was sitting at the bottom of the front steps of the school and talking - well, yelling - into his phone.

“I know I said I’d be busy til five. I was wrong. I need you to pick me up!” He was quiet for a moment as the person on the other end spoke. Then he yanked the phone from his ear and slammed his finger on the end call button. “Bitch,” he cursed the phone.

Ah. That language meant it was either Frankie or his mother he was talking to.

Baaz approached cautiously, “Hey.”

Hunter gave him a quick glance and then decidedly didn’t look at him as he responded. “What do you want?”

Baaz found himself sitting next to Hunter on the bottom step. “I just want to see how you're doing.”

“Why do you care? You fired me.”

Baaz nodded. He couldn’t deny it.

“And you’re not even going to deny it.” 

Okay. There were some things Baaz needed to get straight with him right away. He couldn’t let Hunter think he was a jerk just because he didn’t know the whole story. “I voted to fire you because for All Inclusive it makes the most sense.”

Hunter scoffed. “Sure. Let’s all act like this is about the club. And not about who Yael hates me now and turned you all against me.”

“It was about the club. It doesn’t work with you and Yael in it together.”

“Right, and you sided with Yael by firing me.”

“I guess, but that’s not all. I have a plan, and it only works if you’re not in All Inclusive.”

Hunter looked to Baaz with a curious expression. Baaz got to explaining his masterful plan.

\-----

Vivian’s year couldn’t stop getting better. A spoiled friendship dumped and a fantastic relationship started, and it wasn’t even November yet. Vivian and Julio spent every moment they could together. They got yelled at for talking in band class by Ms. Rawlings nearly every day, they would arrive late to their fourth period classes because they couldn’t find it in themselves to end their lunch time conversations, they created systems for meeting each other during passing periods and walking to their classes together. They even started hanging out outside of school, because now they knew exactly what situations to avoid because of their first date. They would hold hands when walking down the hallways, and kiss each other goodbye when they parted, but other than that almost nothing had changed. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, but it was nothing more than a best friendship with kissing involved. Vivian couldn’t think of a more ideal relationship.

Vivian had never felt so good. She’d forgotten what it was like to have a healthy relationship.

But the sunny sky of her and Julio’s relationship was still blocked by a cloud every once and awhile. About a week into dating a cloud appeared in the form of someone Vivian had gotten off her mind for the longest time in years and years.

The day the cloud appeared Vivian was eating lunch alone, because Julio was auditioning for a solo for band. Her table was approached by the person she’d banished from her mind, and done her best to banish from her life.

“I need to ask you something,” Naomi demanded. Vivian looked up at her from where she was sitting. Naomi was unrecognizable from who she was last year. She’d lost weight and her clothing had only gotten more skimpy, despite the cooling weather. Her face, which once burst into a smile every time she saw Vivian, now held a permanent scowl when she was around her. Naomi could spare a pleasant expression for Abra and Lara, but they were never pointed in Vivian’s direction. Not anymore.

Despite Naomi’s presence, Vivian didn’t feel that ball of dread start to close up her throat as it often did. Instead her breathing stayed steady, her heartbeat went strong. “Yes?”

“Are you and that weirdo actually dating?”

“He’s not a weirdo. And yes.”

“Huh.”

Naomi didn’t say anything after that. Vivian could see her mull the idea of Vivian having a boyfriend over in her mind. She knew it was a surprise to Naomi that she was the one who got a boyfriend first, and it was a surprise to her too, but she didn’t want to have a conversation about it. She didn’t want to have a conversation with Naomi ever again.

“Is that all?” she asked. She just wanted her to leave.

“I guess I’m just surprised. I mean, who would have thought that you would get a boyfriend before me?”

“Yeah,” Vivian said, hoping her uninteresting response would prompt Naomi to get out of there a little bit faster.

Instead, she sat down on the bench across from her.

“Can I ask something personal?” She didn’t wait for a reply, “Are you two having sex?”

Vivian tensed. Why hadn’t she left yet? “That’s not really your business.”

Naomi gave her a shocked open-mouthed smile. Not the sort of smile that Vivian wanted to see. “Ooh, that means you are. Wow. Who'da thought it? You losing your virginity before me. Not what you’d expect when, y’know.” She gestured to Vivian as a whole.

Okay. That was it. She wouldn’t put up with this anymore.

“You can’t say that to me.”

Naomi took a moment to process. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re not my friend anymore, I’m not going to let you say mean things about me anymore.”

“You weren’t actually offended by that, were you? It was just a joke.”

“No. You don’t get to tell me jokes. Or make fun of me, or Julio. I let you tease me for years, and I’m not putting up with it anymore. I’m actually glad you ditched me to be with those bimbos, because now I don’t have to pretend to like you anymore, or pretend that what you say doesn’t hurt my feelings.”

“What, is this like a break up or something?”

“I already tried that, and you just don’t get it. I don’t like you, Naomi, and I don’t want to be friends with you.”

She sat up straight, then stood up from the bench.

“Well, it’s your lucky day,” she said, “because I don’t want to be friends with you either.”

And she left.

Vivian took a deep breath, preparing to calm her nerves, but her chest rose and fell perfectly naturally. The room around her was clear and tear-free. She was perfectly fine. She’d just made it through a conversation with Naomi, she’d just broken up with Naomi, and she felt perfectly fine. 

She couldn’t help but smile.

Then Julio burst into the lunch room, trumpet clanging around his side, spouting joyous words about how well he’d done on his audition, and how he was sure he would get the solo. Vivian smiled and listened. She didn’t even have to put effort into forgetting about Naomi this time around. Those thoughts simply slipped from her mind on their own.

\-----

Baaz watched expressions of confusion spread across the faces of every member of All Inclusive as they walked through the door at the start of another meeting. When they entered the room they saw Baaz, as expected, and next to him was something much less expected.

Hunter.

When everyone had arrived, given their look of initial shock, and then fallen silent, Baaz began to speak. “I know you’re surprised to see him here today, but that’s because the two of us have an announcement to make.

“I’ve decided to join Hunter in his departure from All Inclusive. We’re going to start our own channel, called Honesty Reviews. I want everyone to know that I’m not doing this out of any sort of spite or dislike for any of you. I actually hope that we can all still be friends after this, but the way All Inclusive currently exists is ineffective, and for my own personal reasons I don’t wish to be a part of it anymore. You three are fully capable of running your own channel, and I wish you the best of luck without us.”

Baaz smiled at the end of his speech, awaiting a ‘good luck’ to be sent right back to him.

One never came.

“Wait,” Yael said, “You guys are becoming our competition?”

“Not competition,” Baaz assured them, “In fact, I have some plans for future collabs we could do together. I’m just trying to make the logical decision, and starting a new channel with Hunter makes the most sense to me right now.”

“No, we’re not gonna collab with you. You’re betraying us, Baaz.”

Hunter spoke up. “You betrayed me first. And you can’t tell us what to do anymore, we’re not a part of All Inclusive.”

Baaz nodded along.

“So basically All Inclusive doesn’t exist anymore,” Vijay said.

Baaz started to give some advice. “Not at all. You might need to adjust your content creation, but I think that you still have a promising future-”

Yael cut him off. “You can’t boss us around anymore. You’re not a part of the group.”

Baaz nodded. “True. Are we all good, then?”

“Not really,” Yael said.

“But do we understand what’s happened?”

The room agreed.

“Good. Then I hope to see you guys around. Again, good luck.”

Baaz and Hunter left.

The other group’s reaction wasn’t ideal, but Baaz was sure they’d come around eventually. It made sense for him to leave, and he did believe that those three could make All Inclusive work without him. He knew that with enough time the two groups would prosper apart from each other, and eventually come together once again stronger than ever. That was his plan.

That was the part of the plan he hadn’t shared with Hunter, but if he played all his cards right then their friend group would be back to normal before the school year was over. That was all he really wanted. Not to be a famous YouTuber, not to start a new channel, not to be forced to choose Hunter or Yael. He just wanted the friend group to work again, and since time heals all wounds, that’s what he was going to do.

His plan was going to work. They always did.

\-----

People say time slows down when something you’re looking forward to is approaching, but that week Vijay learned that the opposite can be true as well. The weekend ran full force into Vijay’s life. His plans to meet up with that man were now just hours away. He placed a wide brimmed hat atop his head and took a good look at himself in the full length mirror stuffed in the corner of his messy room. He tucked the floral shirt he was wearing into the waist of his shorts and then flattened the fabric. He looked good, well dressed in a mature way, but Lola was right. He was young, and no matter how he dressed he couldn’t avoid it. 

He, Baaz, and Hunter were all friends when they started going through puberty. He watched his friends start growing body hair and deepen their voices, while all he got was a bit taller. His voice stayed in a high register that let strangers know he was gay before he told them. He barely needed to shave, since the whispers of facial hair he accumulated on his soft jawline were never noticeable. But just because he looked like a little kid didn’t mean he was one. He was seventeen years old, and other than a complete lack of life experience to back up his claim, he was sure he was mature. Mature enough to seek out his own sexual relationships, at least. He was just a few hours away from no longer being a virgin. He smiled as he slipped socks over his feet and headed downstairs.

At the front door, he was caught.

“Vijay?” his mom called out.

Vijay stopped with his hand on the doorknob, and turned to face Priya Maraj. She was a short and thin woman who was wearing a fierce suit. Vijay thought she’d been at some sort of business meeting or something, but apparently he was wrong.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Vijay responded quickly. “Out with friends.”

She spared a glance over his fine outfit and let a small and knowing smile spread across her lips. “Special friends?” she teased.

Vijay rolled his eyes. “No, mom. No special friends.”

He twisted the doorknob and opened the door. Priya stopped him once more.

“But you’d tell me if there were special friends, right?”

Vijay laughed. “If I had a boyfriend I would never shut up about it. You’d know.”

“Of course, of course.” she took a step closer to her son. “Make good choices,” she warned, “And be home by ten.”

“It’s not even a school night,” he complained.

“Vijay.” She had a way of speaking that kept any argument from making it past a few words.

“I’ll be home by ten,” he conceded.

She smiled. “I know.” She closed the full distance between them and placed a kiss on Vijay’s cheek.

“Okay, bye!” Vijay pulled away from his mom’s grasp and left the house quickly. Nervous energy surged through him the whole antsy walk to the bus stop.

\-----

There was a very thin line that defined the difference between nervous excitement to genuine dread, and Vijay wasn’t quite sure which one he was feeling when he hopped off the bus and walked the two blocks to the motel. His body was shaking and his breath was light, coming out of his mouth in quick gasps he was trying his hardest to control. He knew he was excited. This was the moment that he was going to stop being some gay virgin nerd and start being an acutally experienced almost-adult. That was what he’d wanted for so long, and he knew he must be excited it was actually happening.

But it wasn’t that simple. This wasn’t exactly the way he planned on it all going down. It wasn’t going to be romantic. And even though it wasn’t going to mean anything to the other guy, it was going to mean everything to him. Then there was the issue of him being awkward and inexperienced and having no idea what this whole thing was going to feel like, which meant the other guy was probably going to judge him afterwards. Or worse, during.

He turned one final corner and was faced with their meeting spot. It was just as non-romantic as he expected it to be. The sign that read ‘MOTEL’ was glowing red, in stark contrast to the dimming cloudy sky. He had memorized the room number he’d agreed to meet the man in, but he still pulled out the phone to double and triple check. Room 8. That isn’t a hard number to remember, but anxiety was doing its best in making him doubt himself. He wasn’t going to let that get the best of him, though, this was about to be the most important moment of his life, he wasn’t going to mess it up.

He crossed the almost empty parking lot and stepped up onto the concrete pathway in front of all the rooms. The curtains in the window next to the door for room 8 wasn’t letting Vijay get any sort of view for what was in store for him. He breathed in as steady of a breath as he could manage, and then rapped his knuckles against the door.

The man appeared seconds later.

“Vijay?” he asked.

Vijay nodded, afraid that if he opened his mouth nothing but squeaking would come out.

The man smiled. “You look even more beautiful in real life.” He stepped back and revealed the room with his arm. “Come in.”

Vijay stepped inside. The motel room was bland, and distinctly unlived in. The man crossed the room to a bottle of red wine and poured two glasses. He offered one up. Vijay took it, but didn’t take a sip. He wasn’t too keen on alcohol, and he didn’t want this to be a drunk decision. This was supposed to be the one thing his whole life had been leading up to, and he wasn’t going to let it go wrong. He wasn’t. The man took large gulps of his drink. He sat in the swivel chair on one side of the room, and gestured to the queen sized bed, inviting Vijay to sit.

He did.

“So, if you don’t mind me making conversation. What’s your story?”

“Oh. Um.” Vijay fumbled. He hadn’t been prepared for the wine or the conversation. He thought the point of Grindr was to hookup, not all of this. “I’m taking a gap year,” he lied. He was supposed to be eighteen, and since he wasn’t going to look eighteen then he needed to act like it.

“Oh? Where are you going?”

“Um.” Think quick, Vijay. “U of T.”

“Yeah? That’s a nice school. What’re you gonna study?”

“Um.” God, this guy was asking a lot of questions. Weren’t they supposed to just have sex and be on their way? “Undecided.”

“Hm. That’s good. I wish I started off undecided. Then maybe I would have found something I liked doing.”

“What are you?” Vijay asked.

“Doctor,” the man replied. Then he threw back the final sip of his drink. “I’m glad you’re taking your time with your life. It’s the best thing to do when you’re young and can still make important decisions like that.” 

He stood and approached the bed. The space between them squeezed into nothing. Vijay’s face was lined up with the top of his waistband. He tilted his head to look at the man’s wrinkled face. It said in his profile that he was 37, but Lola was right in saying he looked 50. There was no way he was being truthful about his age. The man grabbed the full wine glass from Vijay’s hand.

“Don’t want it?”

Vijay shook his head. “I don’t drink.”

He placed the glass on the floor and leaned in closer. Vijay hoped that at no point they would knock it over, because that would be a hassle for housekeeping to clean up. He didn’t want them to have to clean up any messes. They didn’t deserve that. He was just a dumb kid doing a dumb thing. He didn’t want to be a stain on their carpet. He hoped that at no point they would be loud enough to disturb their neighbors. They deserved a full night's rest. He was just a dumb kid doing a dumb thing. He didn't want to be a bump in their night.

His wandering thoughts were brought back to reality when the man’s hands were on his face. He was leaning in close, and soon they were kissing. Then he was being pushed down from a sitting position to one where he was laying on his back, the man on top of him. His face was rough with whiskers and age. His hands were calloused and pushing his shirt up his beating torso.

He’d expected the feeling of nervousness to dissipate when he arrived and realized what fun this was all about to be, but that hadn’t happened. By the time the man had removed his shirt his mind was buzzing so hard he couldn’t see where he was anymore. But he could still hear the man’s words and obey his orders.

The man said, “Take your shirt off.” He did. The man said, “Turn around.” He did. The man said, “Take your pants off.” He did.

There was no space between their bodies now.

Vijay said, “Wait.” He didn’t. Vijay said, “Slow down.” He didn’t. Vijay said, “Stop.” He didn’t.

He didn’t. He didn’t. He didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! A new chapter, and this one didn't take me months to complete! 
> 
> Quick Note: I changed First Chair Flute (aka Aubrianna)'s name to Miabella. Her name used to be too similar to Abra's, and if I expand her character in the future I don't want it to be confusing. That's all!


End file.
